Why Your Business needs a Social Media Strategy

What is the ROI on social media? How quickly will it take to start generating leads or sales for my business? How do I get 10,000 followers?  Questions we hear a lot!⁠

⁠It takes time, diligence and commitment to build up a winning social media presence. Social media isn’t something you just decide to do and immediately see a return on investment.⁣⁠  Social media is not a quick fix. 

Yet one of the biggest mistakes we see businesses make is believing that they don’t need a social media strategy.  Or perhaps not actually realising that social media can be strategic.  But the bottom line is that choosing what platforms, which tactics to use, what channels to post on at all should all be part of connecting everything you do on social to your wider business goal.

We all know how easy it is to slip into that habit of just randomly posting as and when.  Popping a picture onto your grid is super simple and so many people post before they have an actual plan - and often an actual plan never comes to fruition.  Which ultimately can often mean their business goals won’t either.  All too often businesses can spend months and even years just sporadically posting willy nilly with no actual clear purpose.

You may as well be winking in the dark.

Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or multi global brand, a strategy is imperative if you are to achieve your long term goals.  

We have designed numerous strategies for businesses, most recently for one that has been around for over five years without never having contemplated a social media strategy.  It is never too late!  They had a small team which provided a sole service but were really struggling to gain traction on their social media.  They posted about their offering, about an area that they assumed their target audience would be interested in but upon delving deeper and working with them to uncover their business objectives and their target audience, we discovered that they were doing very few things on their social media platforms to meet those business objectives or engage with their audience.

Not only was most of the content they were posting irrelevant to the majority of their online audience but their target market was hanging out on an altogether different platform.  After our recommendations, they shifted their focus to Instagram, changed up their content to reinstate with their audience and immediately saw better results.

A good social media strategy is worth its weight in gold.

And here’s the lowdown…

Knowing your objective

It is 100% essential to have an objective.  Just posting to get your name out there will not result in you winning sales or generating leads.   You simply will not meet your overall business goals this way.  End of.

BUT know what you want from your social media!  It sounds obvious so if you are wanting your audience to purchase something, how do they go about this?  You need to ensure that your call to action is clear and consistent in your content.  Your posts should aim to tie back to your primary business objectives.

Knowing your audience

You need to have an understanding of your target audience, you need to carefully craft your messaging and time your posts adeptly. You need to be active consistently, engaging with your audience, sometimes for months or years, before you see a return on the investment.⁣⁠

⁠Like any relationship, it takes a lot of time, effort and commitment.⁣⁠

⁠⁠Stay focused on creating content that will add value to your target audience, post consistently and engage with your audience. ⁠Hang in there!⁠

Content marketing and organic social media marketing help a business establish a brand. Branding is the purest form of marketing. And, it’s a long-term investment. You’re putting out value and creating a community of interested followers with the hopes that eventually, you won’t have to do as much selling.⁠

Instead, your audience will come to you.⁠

Knowing what to measure

It is so easy to get caught up in vanity metrics, how many likes and followers you have etc  But remember this… they won’t pay the bills.  Part of a clear strategy is to take a look at the right metrics.  The ones that matter most to your business.  Are you looking for traffic from your socials to your website?  Or are you building brand awareness with a new product or service?

With this in mind you can then analyse which social channels are working for you, or which posts are working better towards your end goal.

Knowing your tactics

When you’ve sussed your objectives, audience and social channels you will then need to start looking at how you are going to make these work for your goals.

• Using hashtags - great if you are wanting to be discovered by people who are interested in your industry - as long as you are using the right hashtags.

• Using stories - a perfect way to give your audience a deeper insight into your business and build connections and deeper relationships.

• Paid socials - ideal for nailing sales with ninja targeting into your target market.

Your day to day activities need to support your primary business goals if you are going to be a success on social media.

Your social media strategy needs to be closely aligned with your overall business and marketing goals.  Your objectives and audience will be listed right there in the business plan and the social channels and tactics you use will be the way to grab your audience's attention.

Connecting all of these in a social media strategy is how you succeed with your social media.

We absolutely LOVE delving into brands and working on designing winning strategies.   Whether you are starting out or have been established for years, perhaps now is the time to think about how a solid social media strategy could help your business progress.