To master social media marketing for your brand, you need time, enthusiasm and a great strategy behind your efforts. You also need to keep in mind what great social media marketing is all about, and for this we can refer to the three Cs…
- Content
It’s not enough to just post on your brand’s social media. You need to have something interesting, entertaining, useful or otherwise valuable to talk about. The better your content, the easier you’ll find it to attract and engage with new customers. This is why it’s worth spending more time developing a content strategy, producing your own content and scouring the web for the right quality of content to share. Tell your story, let customers know more about the human side of your brand and attempt to engage them on an emotional level.
Remember that relevancy is key when creating social media content. What you post should be relevant to your target audience, helping to solve their problems or answer their questions. It should tap into the issues, interests and topics that your customers are talking about and that affect their lives. Avoid the hard sell, focusing instead on the quality of the experience for the social media user.
- Connecting
Equally as important as posting your own content is using social media to connect and engage with your customers. Social media users now expect and even demand improved customer service from brands through social platforms, with research showing that 77% find it easy to interact with brands digitally. The same study by StarTek revealed that a massive 80% of those surveyed reported a positive customer experience after contacting a brand using social media.
Customers use social media to ask for help, to complain or to find more information, as well as to praise and recommend your products or services. Remember that social media is all about starting conversations – it isn’t a one-sided advertising platform.
Engagement can also give you valuable information about your target demographic, from which topics interest them the most to who is actually clicking through onto your website. You should make good use of this data to shape your target customer persona, and to tailor future content with their interests in mind.
- Conversions
Great content prompts conversations, and these conversations can turn into leads. Your ultimate goal as a social media marketer however is to turn leads into conversions – this means hard sales. Social media is such a useful marketing tool because you can reach so many people and make a great impact at relatively little cost, potentially creating thousands of opportunities to boost conversions and sales. You should do all you can to seize these opportunities, investing the time to drive customers to your website and persuade them to buy.
Do you have any other keys to social media marketing success, based on your own brand’s experiences? Please feel free to share your tips.
