What is social media?

Social media is a channel of communication, which facilitates the creation and sharing of information, career interests, ideas via virtual communities and networks. The word social media is a noun, which means those websites and applications, which assist users in the creation and sharing of content. It also helps users participate in social networking. Every human being is a social animal. Therefore, he uses social media to either market his services or his products. We know marketing as the action of promoting and selling products/or services. Marketing also includes market research and advertising. Thus, it can be concluded that social media is a channel that allows the social human being to network with others of his ilk.

What is a social media strategy

Having an effective social media strategy is very vital for social media marketing of one’s products and services. There are three reasons why social media is used to convey our marketing message to the target audience.

Marketing

This includes studying consumer behavior and thus understanding consumers. It also includes the development of a unique brand identity, which will fit to the consumer requirements to facilitate customer acquisition. The trader or manufacturer of products or services communicates his message to his target audience by marketing on social media.

2. Employee engagement

This includes recruitment of talent, improvement of internal collaboration and development of company culture. Employee engagement means compelling the employee to become involved in the affairs of the company and give suggestions to do things, based on his experience. Thus, employee engagement is the most important part of a social media strategy.

3. Collaboration

This includes the creation of social platforms, which can be used to collaborate with all the stakeholders of the business environment, namely, partners, suppliers and customers. This platform will act as a bridge in communicating the vision and mission of the top management to the employees. A company newsletter is an example of collaboration.

Five steps to an effective social media strategy

The following paragraphs will give five steps to make an effective social media strategy:

1. Pick the right social media channels based on your objective

Based on your social media objective, you have to choose the right channel of communication through social media. Each social media channel has its own strengths and weaknesses. Each channel can do something and cannot do something else.

2. Create the suitable content for the social media site you select to distribute your message

What you say on the social media site to communicate your message to your target audience entirely depends upon the SEO rankings of words related to your products/services. If these words are used in your message, the message will be communicated loud and clear.

3. Create an editorial calendar to plan the distribution of your social media message

Planning the release of the content written above based on your calendar will go a long way in rendering your social media strategy as effective. What you release, when and how are all equally important for your social media marketing strategy.

4. Use the social media tools

Buttons like AddThis Sharing Buttons and Hashtagify.me will allow you to communicate with your target audience, without you having to say much. You just need to use your social media tools to propagate your message to a wider audience. Then gauging audience reaction on the messages distributed will help you understand your consumer.

5. Optimize your analytics

Monitoring your social media strategy implementation and the consequent results is necessary to judge whether the money you spent on advertising on the social media channel will generate the right kind of noise to push product/service sales. Based on your message, you will be able to optimize your business analytics.

Conclusion

A good social media strategy is nothing but a good social media marketing plan. The earlier you develop such a document, the better for your business if you plan to use the internet to communicate with your end users. However, if the social media channels do not fit your marketing scheme, then you will need a good marketing team who will work on the ground and market your products/services. This will be door to door marketing or cold calling for sales. Different products or services can be sold through different social media channels. If you wish to use the internet to market your wares, then you need to find out whether it will support your marketing plan.

Many of us struggle to create a social media marketing strategy. This article is for those people. This article will also help us build a social media marketing plan from scratch. Simply put, every action you do on social media should have a larger social media marketing plan, which will already have taken care of before its implementation. This means, every post, reply, likes and shares are all a part of a larger social media marketing plan, which will facilitate the marketing of your products/services. You need to create a comprehensive social media strategy in order to release the message on any social media site.

A social media marketing plan is everything you wish to do on social media to achieve your business goals. Before this happens, you need to be aware of your status and then talk about future growth. How effectively you use your social media networks for growth, depends on you.

Author Bio:

Sunny Chawla is a Marketing Manager at AIS Technolabs – a Web design and Development Company. Helping global businesses with unique and engaging tools for their business. He would love to share thoughts on Ecm Services, Web Designing and Web development.

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