It’s 2021 and you are looking to take your marketing to the next level. It may seems daunting at first but creating the right marketing strategy is quite systematic. Follow these steps to be on your way towards social media success.

1. Set goals your business goals
2. Define your target audience 
3. Set your KPI’s
4. Create engaging social content
5. Analyze and improve

Set your business goals.

Ask yourself one question. What do you want out of social media?

Many people hop on social media just because it is what everyone is doing. Don;t get us wrong, social media in 2021 is more important than ever but without knowing your goals, you may end up wasting both your time and money. Here are some common goals that may apply to you.

1. Generate brand awareness
   You may want to get your name out there and generate more awareness about your brand. Instead of telling people who you are and what you offer, create content that tells your story, engages the community with issues both you and they care about. Focus on content that emphasizes your personality and values.
2. Generate leads
   Awareness and engagement online are great but if you have a service or product you need to sell, lead generation may be the right mechanism for you. 
3. Boost community engagement
   Social media is a great place to engage with your audience. A major part of any brand is the customer perception of that brand. Social media is a great way to nurture that community, interact with them, or even have them generate content for you.
4. Drive traffic to your site
   If your marketing strategy and business model rely on website traffic, social media is a powerful tool in sending traffic to your site. Just keep in mind, people on social media like to stay in the platform. It is not easy to ask your audience to leave what they are doing on social media and visit your site. Make your website traffic ads and posts provide value and fall into your marketing funnel. Want to learn more about marketing funnels? We have written an article just for you [link to article]

Define your target audience 

Many businesses make the mistake of trying to sell and advertise to everyone. We have heard this countless times asking a client who their target audience is and they reply “everyone”. If you try to market to everyone you are marketing to no one. This may seem obvious but let’s look at an example. Let’s say you have a clothing store that sells clothes to men and women, boys and girls ages 5 and up. At first glance many people would say, yes we are targeting everyone. This is where one must take a deeper look into the business and find a narrower audience. Here are some questions to ask yourself.

What is the type of person that would want to buy from my store?

What are they looking for?

Do they live a certain lifestyle?

Are they concerned with finding a bargain or the newest trendy clothing?

What other brands do they buy?

Are they looking for just some clothes or looking to make a fashion statement?

All these questions will direct your marketing towards a certain type of customer looking for a specific benefit or value that your store can provide. The answers must inform the visual style, language, advertising targeting and more. 

Set your KPI’s

You have started advertising your business on social media but how do you know if you are spending your money in the right places? This is where KPI’s are very important. KPI’s or key performance indicators are data points that indicate whether your advertising strategy is working or not. Depending on the goals set, your KPI’s will follow.

Reach. Post reach is the number of unique users who saw your post. In other words, how many people are becoming aware of your content or brand.

Clicks. This is the number of clicks on your content or account. Tracking clicks per campaign is essential to understand what drives curiosity or encourage people to buy. Clicks may be clicks to your website, clicks to play a video and more.

Engagement. The total number of social interactions divided by the number of impressions. The higher the engagement rate, the better. High engagement rate tells you that your audience is compelled to interact and engage with your brand. Keep in mind that likes alone may not be a great indicator. Comments and shares tend to carry more weight.

Create engaging content

People on social media are on the platform to discover and be entertained. A direct ad that pops up in people’s feed feels disruptive and interrupts their flow. The best types of content are those that look and feel like content people are used to seeing on that platform. 

Let’s say you just got in a new hat collection in your store and want to sell.

• Create a fun instagram reel with a popular song. Make it look “amateur”
• Shoot some behind the scenes of your product arriving to your store letting people know that it is now available.
• Take a series of photos of the hat being worn by different people in your target audience. 
• Send out free ahts to photographers or influencers that match you brand value and vibe and ask them to create some content for you. You will be surprised how many people would be willing to do this for free
• Find a brand ambassador to continuously promote your products as they come in.
• Ask you followers what they think of the new styles via polls on instagram stories.

Think about what the audience will enjoy watching and create a series of content pieces that fit. If people like what they see, they will buy. Of course you should never forget to leave a compelling call to action in your post content as well!

Analyze and improve  

After implementing all that you have learned, it is now time to understand what is working and what is not.  Marketing is not magic, there is no one formula that fits all. Take a look at the results of your content and figure out what types of posts did well and what did not. 

Things to look out for:

1- what types of content got me the best results

2- What times brought the highest engagement

3- am i achieving the goals i set?

4- What language style brought eh best results

5- did my audience like long form posts or short form posts?

Social media is a matter of trial and error. Monitor your performance and make small tweaks to try to continuously improve results.

Conclusion

Setting your social media strategy for 2021 may seem like a daunting task. If you follow the steps above and really think about what you want our of social media, you will be well on your way to creating a great online presence.

If you are looking for more assistance or just don’t have the time to take care of it yourself, We would be more than happy to help you find your way to wards success. Contact us here for a free consultation.