How to Rock Your Social Media Strategy
Having a social media strategy is an integral part of building a brand and marketing your product. Want to know how to develop a killer plan from scratch? We've broken down the process into five simple steps.Step 1: Identify Your Target Audience Identifying your audience involves first researching and defining your ideal customer. Depending on the stage of your business, you can look at your current customers and gather data about them, and if you're unsure, start setting up customer surveys (Survey Monkey, Google Forms and Typeform are all great tools for this). Not only that, but you can glean information from the marketing you've already started, such as Instagram Insights. Lastly, take a look at your competitors, who their customers are, who follows them on social media, and who is a part of their community, and see where there might be overlap for your brand. So what do you look at? You'll want to check out both demographic data as well as psychographic data. Demographic data is statistical data about the characteristics of a population, such as age, gender, occupation and income. Psychographic data is information about a person's values, attitudes, interests and personality traits.Using this data, you'll then want to create a customer profile. A great exercise for this is to describe your ideal customer by telling a story about who they are. The more detailed the better. This will help you understand what motivates them. Be sure to ask questions like, does your customer engage on social media regularly? If so, which channels and how frequently? Ask questions that will guide you toward the answers you are looking for. An example for a brand of scented candles inspired by locations around the world could be.... "Natalie, a 28 year old woman who lives in Austin, TX with her boyfriend and dog, who works as a marketing manager at a digital agency and loves to travel the world in her free time. Now that she's working from home, she loves the idea of a fragrance that reminds her of some of her favorite destinations. She engages daily on Instagram and TikTok and weekly on Facebook and Pinterest, but she increasingly finds products she likes through her peers and influencers on Instagram." Step 2: Define Your Goals The TL;DR here: all of your social media content should be tied to your goals. So how do you put goals together? You can break them into categories by channel, based on your business goals, and also into phases, especially if you're in the early stages of building a brand. Some examples of goals are:
Drive brand awareness
Create demand
Acquire leads
Get sales
Build a loyal following
Establish social proof
Provide customer service
Become a thought leader in your target market
For example, if you're just starting out, you can choose goals like driving brand awareness so your customers know your product exists, and later move on to getting sales and providing customer service. Decide where you want to focus at each stage, and hone in on a few goals to start. Step 3: Allocate Your Content Mix In this step you'll create social media programming based on recurring content archetypes. This means creating a variety of content types for your audience. Which might look something like...
Inspirational content: inspiring visuals, quotes, purpose-driven posts
Informational content: tips and tricks, product info, how-to videos, behind the scenes
About your product: new launches, product details, creative product shots, product in use, product texture or how it's made
Engaging: humor, customer testimonials, influencer features, Q&A, quizzes, This or That
Once you create these buckets, it will be clear which type of posts make sense for your product, your brand, and the tone of voice you want to communicate. Seem like a lot? Don't worry! You can always...
Share content between channels
Re-post your greatest hits
Reach out to your audience for UGC content - your loyal fans might be happy to share their experiences with your product!
And remember, your content can take a variety of forms, from simple text, to photography, to video, to GIFs and even stop motion animation. Try them out and have fun with it! Step 4: Choose Your Channels While having a presence on all of these platforms is useful, you'll want to place your initial focus on two or three of the following:
Facebook
Instagram
Pinterest
TikTok
Twitter
LinkedIn
So how do you choose? You might know where your audience already is based on the customer profile you created, but if they are frequenting multiple channels, here are some guidelines. Use Facebook when...
You want to reach the broadest range of customers.
You have especially engaging content that will drive comments, likes and shares.
Use Instagram when...
You want to showcase your most visually engaging content.
For influencer-created content or content likely to drive engagement with an influencer following.
Use Twitter when...
You want to share news.
You want to network or engage with journalists or PR.
You want to engage with relevant voices in your space, including your customers!
Use Pinterest when....
You have content that highlights your product (Pinterest users have a higher buying intent than any other social media platform).
Use LinkedIn when...
Your target audience can be identified with a particular profession or industry.
You want to build thought leadership, announce research findings or spur conversation around the impact you've had in a particular area.
Use TikTok when...
You want to reach a younger audience (13-24 year olds represent 69% of the app's user base).
You want to show some personality! (Yes, a brand has a personality too and this is your chance to have fun with it!)
Step 5: Set Up a ProcessFinally, once you have all the pieces in place, you can set up a process that is definable and repeatable. There are three main ways to get ahead of the game when setting up a process:
Designate a place to collect ideas: whether it's a shared dropbox or drive folder, the key here is to separate your content types into categories so they are easy to find. For example, you'll want to separate your inspirational posts from your educational posts.
Establish a schedule: develop a posting schedule based on the times when your audience is most engaged on each channel.
Utilize tools for automation: There are so many tools out there that can make your life easier. A few we recommend are...
Trello
Hootsuite
Buffer
Later
Sprout Social
The more organized your process from the beginning, the more time you will save later on, and you'll make it more seamless when the time comes to hire staff or freelancers to take on the role. Now that you've put together your strategy, get out there and show the world what you've got! All social media thrives on authenticity, engagement and connection, and is a human community like any other. So stay true to yourself, stick to your strategy, and build a community of loyal fans!
October 5, 2020
Image: Behind the scenes at our first photo shoot, summer 2020.
At The ClickThrough, we're wildly in love with all things visual: photography, art, fashion, design, architecture, interior design...and we're kind of getting into TikTok too... Anyway, when it comes to your images, we're on it. Obsessively so. Check out our blog post on The Power of an Image (And How to Create One) to learn some tips on finding your inspiration.
Our mission is to empower your brand to grow your business by providing exceptional photography. We're here for you. Whether you're launching a new collection, need some updated professional images, or some fresh creative shots for social media, we've got you covered. If you're ready to try it out, we'll review your business goals and your content needs together in a complimentary consultation with our team, where we'll offer a suggested introductory package. Then, you simply mail in your products and one of our professional photographers will make the magic happen, totally remotely. We are priced by the image so YOU decide what you buy: make a small investment now to test it out, and if you like what you see, come back for more any time.
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