Social Media Strategy, Why Do You Need One?
Social media has become quite ubiquitous throughout our society, with people of all ages spending a portion of every day browsing through their favorite social media platforms. Social media has gone from cute cat pictures to marketplaces and referral channels that contribute a significant percentage of revenue to companies of all sorts. Whether your company is B2C or B2B focused, in today’s age a social media presence is a requirement for any business that wants to be relevant. A successful business will need not only a presence, but a social media strategy.
Which social media platform is right for your business?
One might think that the more social media platforms a company is engaged in, the better. This is not exactly true. So how should you pick the right social medial platforms for your business? Well, it all depends on what your company does and what type of demographics is your target audience made of. For example, if your business is B2B, you should focus your social media efforts on LinkedIn and Facebook. However, if your business is more B2C focused, you should concentrate on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
It is important to acknowledge the differences between each platform, realize they have a different use case (from the consumer’s point of view) and adapt the content to each platform accordingly. Social media users will have an expectation for the content they are presented with depending on the platform they are using. If you don’t respect the platform and the audience, you will not get the results you are hoping for.
Selecting the appropriate social media platforms is the first step in creating a social media strategy for your business.
What type of content should your company be posting?
Although the type of content that should be posted on social media by a business depends on their business type and what they sell, there are a few types of content that any business should be posting.
- Introductory posts: If your company is new to a social media platform it is good practice for the first post to introduce the company to the platform’s users. The introduction should contain an appropriate greeting, a brief description of what the company does and an invitation to visit the company’s website to find out more details if interested. It is important to link the introductory post with your company’s home page and include relevant hashtags at the end of the post, to increase organic exposure.
- New features, products, or services announcements: When your company starts offering anything new, it should be posted on the company website and then linked to a post on the relevant social media platforms. The social media post should contain a brief description of the new offering and a link to either make a purchase or find out more.
- Holiday Posts: The holidays give companies an opportunity to post something witty, funny, and otherwise engaging that would compel social media users to share that post with their friends, increasing organic exposure. If you find a way to link your witty post to a special offer that might be enticing, all the better!
- Company announcements: If your company received a new round of funding, you are moving headquarters, or are opening a new store location, post about it! Seeing that your company is doing well will increase your followers’ confidence in your brand and might attract some new eyes.
Coming up with a list of content types that your company will be sharing on social media is the second step of a social media strategy.
When should you be posting on social media?
Each social media platform has a time and day that historically have resulted in more organic views and user engagements. This of course varies by platform and content type.
When considering timing, a company must not only thing about the time to post, but also the frequency of the posts. A company should not post so often that they become annoying to their followers, this only leads to a drop in followers. Posting too infrequently is not good either, as your audience might forget about your brand and go with your competition instead. So how often should your company post? Once again, this is heavily dependent on the industry and the target audience of the company, however once a week is generally safe for any company type.
Although the products or services a company offers might be similar or the same to many other companies, the company story, culture and other factors make each company unique and a unique company requires a unique marketing strategy.
If you need help with your marketing strategy, please contact us to set up a free consultation.
