7 Tips To Step Up Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Gone are the times when social media was just another networking opportunity brands could use to create a buzz. Social media has come a long way from being a silo where interns could learn new skills to a powerful platform that can boost a business’s bottom line.

Today social media marketing works in tandem with other business strategies to generate publicity and create awareness. Social media is a great place to start your marketing campaign from scratch.

Follow these seven steps to create a killer SMM strategy that resonates with your target audience:

1. Establish Goals

Any marketing strategy starts with goal setting.

Analyzing the goals you want to achieve helps you come up with an attainable social media strategy. The goals keep you on the right track and allow you to gauge your ROI.

Align your marketing goals with your business objectives. To make sure they are, look into the following four areas:

The networks on which you are currently active

How many of your networks are driving value

Check if all your networks are optimized to communicate your company culture

Identify your competitors and analyze their promotional activities

Keep your goals specific, scalable, realistic, and most importantly time-bound.

2. Audit Your Existing Social Medial Connect

Before implementing your SMM strategy, evaluate your existing online reach.

Create a spreadsheet where you can document the following details:

list the social networks you're actively using for brand promotions

Identify social networking platforms where you can showcase your brand

do all your profiles reflect your brand’s logo and vision? Make sure all the contact details are correct.

what is the target audience and what are their pain points

identify the preferred networking channels of your target audience

Any marketing campaign aims to understand the needs and preferences of the end-user. The above pointers will help you learn more about your target audience and enable you to focus on effective channels.

Once your social media audit is complete, formulate a mission statement for each of your social accounts. The mission statement guides actions and helps classify consumers based on their preferences for each platform. Studying the patterns they exhibit when engaging with technology gives you a clear picture of how each platform works with your target audience.

3. Build Your Online Identity From Ground Up

Once you are done with the auditing, choose the platforms where you want to promote your brand.

If your brand doesn't have a social presence yet, set-up business accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Google Plus. Every social network caters to a different audience and should be treated accordingly.

Focus on platforms that resonate with the objectives of your brand and add value to your business. Carefully pick platforms based on what they are best at.

You can study the demographic representation of each social networking site to know which is the most appropriate to engage your target audience.

4. Connect With Industry Experts And Influencers To Increase Followers

The most important reason to be active on any networking platform is to connect with existing and prospective customers. But this also means that your competitors are not too far. Use the wealth of information available on social networking sites to improvise your marketing strategy while drawing inspiration from your competitors.

When you use social media to listen to your customers, to know what appeals to them, and to understand their pain points, you can devise a marketing plan that projects you as a unique player.

Know what your target audience is busy pinning, posting, and tweeting and realign your tactics to reach out.

Finally, capitalize on industry experts. Follow them, connect with them, retweet them, comment on their posts, and use them to influence your audience. Building relationships with influencers can offer long-term value for your brand.

5. Create an Engaging Editorial Calendar

Use your mission statement to create engaging and informative content that connects with your target audience. Spruce it up with images, infographics, blogs, ebooks, and videos and post it on different platforms.

Make your content fresh, relevant, unique, informative, and engaging. List the topics you want to share with your target audience and be regular with your posts.

Schedule your content in advance and be prompt with your communication.

Network it in all right places and don’t forget to use a conversational approach.

Create event pages, integrate with hashtags, and stream videos but be sure to zero in on the needs and desires of your target audience.

6. Trace The Reach Of Your Social Media Campaigns

You can use Google analytics to analyze the success of your marketing endeavors.

Most marketers capitalize on social media management tools to gauge their productivity and scale their efforts. Analyzing data and tracking the results will help you take corrective action and your online business will continue to grow.

You can stick to your approach but be flexible with your methods if you want to generate leads using social media marketing. Evaluate your previous plans and realign your techniques to optimize effective channels.

7. Build On Your Strengths (From Good To Great)

Go creative to keep the followers you have earned. Capitalize on innovative social media campaigns that compel your audience to engage.

Use Facebook adverts to retarget your visitors. Use trending hashtags to connect with new prospects. Retweet the latest updates from your influencers and double down on channels that are driving qualified leads.

Use Buzzsumo to identify trending stories and recreate them to intrigue your audience.

Optimize what is working for you and shut down what’s not.

Digital Marketing, Social Media a Must To Expand Business: President LCCI

Entrepreneurs should use most effective tools like digital marketing and social media to give a notable expansion to their business and to keep in touch with the outer world effectively. The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) President Sheikh Muhammad Arshad talking to newsmen said the use of right technology is a must to move ahead so that entrepreneurs should focus this particular area and harness the power of digital marketing and social media.

The information technology has transformed the way of doing business while manual business functions have been automated with the development of personal computers, business software and Internet-based intranets.

MassLive Media, new digital marketing solutions company, launches today

MassLive Media, a new standalone digital marketing solutions company, launches today. MassLive Media, which will operate in conjunction with MassLive.com, offers a full suite of digital solutions including behavioral audience targeting, video executions, search engine marketing, social media advertising and more.

"We're here to help your business achieve its sales and marketing initiatives thanks to a unique blend of audience data, innovative digital presentation and social media integration," said Sally Azar, Marketing Manager of MassLive Media.

MassLive Media leverages the audience reach of MassLive.com - the third-largest news & information site in Massachusetts with over 3.5 million monthly unique visitors - and combines that with a team of digital marketing experts offering dynamic, cutting-edge advertising solutions that can scale from local community businesses to regional and international powerhouses.

"Digital media is a dynamic industry that requires our team at MassLive to constantly stay ahead of the curve in our knowledge of all things digital," said MassLive President Allison Werder.

"We hone these skills every day for our website, social and mobile outreach. Through MassLive Media we apply and expand this digital expertise to our marketing partnerships with local, regional and national clients."

The combination of MassLive's unique first party data and third party data from a reputable network of national affiliates enables MassLive Media to pinpoint messages to a specific set of customers based on behaviors and affinities unique to that reader. This provides effective, measurable sales and marketing solutions for clients.

MassLive Media, in association with Advance Local, is one of just 31 Google Premier SMB Partners nationwide, and can offer clients the privilege of direct access to Google. These benefits include executive, technical, sales, marketing, account and partner management support from one of the leading technology companies in the world. Advance Digital, part of Advance Local, has also been named a Microsoft Partner of the Year three years in a row for their digital advertising services.

Learn more about how MassLive Media can help your business activate your ideal customer at www.masslivemedia.com. To schedule a personal consultation contact Azar at sazar@masslive.com or via phone at 413-731-2479.

MassLive and MassLive Media are a part of Advance Local, one of the largest media groups in the U.S. reaching more than 70 million consumers through its 12 local news and information websites, which rank #1 among local media in their respective markets, and more than 30 newspapers. Our affiliated websites and newspapers are well known for their award-winning journalism. Advance Local is part of Advance Publications, along with Conde Nast and American City Business Journals.

Onsharp digital marketing director shares social media tips

During her "Power of Being a Social Employee" presentation Tuesday, April 12, at the Fargo Holiday Inn, she shared with the audience of about 150 a tweet from her colleague Samantha Nies: "Thankful, once again, for the flexibility from #TeamOnsharp! Working from home with a sick toddler sleeping next to me. Grateful. #ONmoments."

"That's great 'social proof' that we really are flexible in those moments when it makes a difference," said Jensen, who has more than 15 years of experience in digital marketing.

She said building company culture and recruitment is just one way a social employee program can help further an organization's goals. It can also boost sales, bring attention to community impact and volunteer efforts, engage students, and recognize and thank co-workers for their work.

The social media concepts and strategies Jensen outlined during her lunchtime business training session, hosted by the Fargo West Fargo Moorhead Chamber of Commerce, can help companies and nonprofits of any size extend their reach.

"Onsharp is a really small company," she explained. "We have 16 full-time employees, 12 of which are on our social employee team, and about 60 percent of our social reach on Twitter comes from our social employee team."

Jensen defines a "social employee" as anyone who uses social media to build trust, nurture relationships, share expertise, grow professionally or achieve professional goals. "If you use social media for any of these things, you're a social employee," she said.

For companies without a social employee program, she suggested first involving "anyone with a public-facing role," such as media, media relations or sales.

Just having a few people working on it can make a big impact.

"Statistics say that employee social networks only overlap with brand networks 2 to 8 percent. That means the people who your employees are friends with, only 2 to 8 percent of them have taken that next step of following your brand accounts. There's huge opportunity for you to speak to a wider audience," she said.

Focusing on Twitter, Jensen shared tips for effective social media engagement using examples from local professionals at places such as RDO Equipment Co., the chamber and CCRI (Creative Care for Reaching Independence).

Her tips included:

• Share industry trends and connect them back to what you and your company do.

• Interact with customers at trade shows and conventions, bringing offline relationships online and vice versa.

• Recognize customers and partners with mentions, likes and retweets.

• Give followers a behind-the-scenes look at your office or job.

• Share what you love about your job.

"You can pack a lot into 140 characters," she said.

The chamber's next business training session, "Know Your Customer and How They Buy So You Don't Get Ubered," featuring Johnathon Rademacher and Eric Dukart of Sundog, is scheduled Wednesday, May 11, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn.