What is the fourth step involved in developing and implementing a social media marketing campaign

How to Develop a Social Media Marketing Strategy

4 Phases to Creating a Winning Social Media Strategy

You know that marketing is all about getting your message in front of your audience where they hang out. That is why having a social presence and a Social Media Strategy is so important, yet, most businesses fail to fully leverage social media for their marketing efforts.

According to Statista, Facebook is the biggest social platform globally with a penetration of 2271 Million users , followed by YouTube with 1900 Million users.

Keep in mind, there is a lot more to social media than simply posting updates. In this article, I cover the basics of a successful social media strategy, methods and metrics. Let’s get into it.

The 4 Stages of a Successful Social Cycle

1.      Listening

2.      Influencing

3.      Networking

4.      Selling

All 4 stages are important, but social listening is where it all begins. Listening gives you the insights you need to perform the other 3 stages well. The key is to get your message in front of your prospects where they hang out online. For almost all businesses that includes one or more of the top social networking sites, such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter.

The key is to execute the social cycle while minimizing costs. Lets get into the first stage:

1.      SOCIAL LISTENING

Marketing strategies always start with your audience. And particularly, listening to your audience.

Whether you pay attention to it or not, your prospects and customers are talking about you online. They’re sharing their experiences with your products and services, they’re talking about what you say and do and they are asking you questions.

Some comments are positive, to which you should respond with a big thank-you.

Other comments are not that positive, and some are just downright negative. These need immediate attention so that your followers know you are present and accessible.

Think of it like customer support. If you don’t answer, it leaves a bad impression. But when you do answer, listen to your followers and respond appropriately, you can better connect with your followers, fix issues they might have and build a good reputation.

Listening should always be your number one priority.

Goals of Social Listening

So what exactly are you listening for?

·        Track public perception of your brand

·        Identify topics that you should be talking about

·        Keep up to date with the industry trends

·        Perform customer research

·        Conduct competitive research

5 Things to Pay Attention to:

1.      Your Brand – watch for mentions of your company name, products and any other identifying information.

2.      Topics Relevant to Your Industry – listen to topics people bring up, questions people ask, and information they may want.

3.      Your Competitors – what are people saying about your competitors, is it good or bad? What are your competitors saying about you?

4.      Influencers in Your Industry – listen for topics influencers are talking about. Watch the content they are producing. These are clues for where the industry is moving.

5.      Public Facing People in Your Company – listen for what is being said about your leaders and influencers. What is being said? Is it good or bad?

The aim is to monitor what is being said regarding your brand, your industry, your competitors and -influencers. This will allow you to manage your reputation, perform real-time customer service, and identify product and content gaps that you can fill.

So now that you’ve listened, you also need to respond to the things you hear and see. You can respond using the feedback loop.

What is a Feedback Loop?

It’s a strategic process that you create for your team to use when addressing issues that come up during Social Listening. It maps out the people and departments that issues should be directed to and who has the responsibility for resolving them.

It works like this:

You put a social media manager in place, actively listening.

When your social media manager sees a complaint or issue, let’s say, on Facebook, they will perform “triage” which is responding empathetically with a “You’ve been heard” message. And then forward the complaint or issue to the relevant department or person. This happens within 12 hours of the complaint or issue.

Once the complaint or issue has been forwarded to the appropriate department or person, the specialist will then resolve the issue completely within 24 hours.

Why Does a Feedback Loop Work?

Having a social media listener is all good and well. But, they often don’t have the specialized knowledge or authority to effectively resolve the issues that arise. And sometimes they don’t know who they should forward the issues to.

When this happens, issues can get overlooked and forgotten, and this can result in untold damage to your brand.

If you have a Feedback Loop in place, that won’t happen. The flowchart clearly maps out which department handles which issue. For example:

·        Who in customer care is responsible for resolving customer services issues

·        Who on the content team is responsible for resolving content issues

·        Who on the product team is responsible for resolving product issues

So that your social media listener knows who to direct complaints and issues to, and the social teams are quick to respond and resolve issues.

The 3 Step Social Customer Service Plan

For social media marketing to work, you need to make it as human and as authentic as possible.

When dealing with a complaint, align yourself with the complainant, de-escalate the situation, and provide a compassionate human touch.

Here is a 3 step process for doing just that:

1.      Respond Quickly – Social Media is fast paced, make sure you respond within 12 hours and completely resolve issues within 24 hours.

2.      Empathize – make an empathetic statement as soon as possible, within 12 hours. You could say…”I know this is frustrating”, ”I’m sorry you are having this experience”, “I can understand how important this is to you”.

3.      Move the Conversation to a Private Channel – if the issue will take more than a few sentences to resolve, take it off the public channel. Use Private messages, email or phone calls to talk and resolve the issue without your other followers getting involved and adding to the discussion.

This approach shows that you are listening, and allows you to express compassion. By moving your conversation to a private channel, it shows that you are committed to providing a real solution.

Metrics to Measure and Track Your Social Listening Efforts

·        Reputation Score / Sentiment Level – Are People happy or unhappy when talking about you? Is the overall tone positive or negative?

·        Retention Rate – Are you retaining followers and customers? If not, Why?

·        Refund Rate – Are you able to resolve issues without having to issue refunds?

·        Product Gaps Identified – What suggestions are people making for new products?

·        Content Gaps Identified – What content should you be creating to answer questions and resolve issues before they arise?

 2.      SOCIAL INFLUENCING

Now that you’ve listened, you need to lead and direct your followers opinions, attitudes and behaviours. You know the trending topics, and conversations taking place, so you now need to add your voice as an authority. Its important to note that Social Listening never stops, in fact, once you start the cycle, you will perform each stage daily.

How do you know if your influence is growing?

·        You get more engagement – Are people responding and sharing your posts?

·        You get more traffic – Are people clicking on your links?

·        Your opinion matters – Are people sharing their questions and opinions with you? Do they eagerly seek interaction with you?

·        You become an authority – Are you a recognised brand that people watch and trust?

Goals for Social Influencing:

·        Increase engagement with your content and your brand.

·        Start conversations around topics related to your business and industry.

·        Boost traffic to your sites.

·        Build awareness around your products, services and offers.

·        Grow your targeting list, also known as your Email List.

Metrics to Measure your Social Influence

·        Site Engagement Rates – Are you getting more social shares and comments?

·        Channel Traffic – Is the traffic on your social media channels increasing over time?

·        Offer Awareness – Are people engaging and responding to the offers you make in Social Media?

·        Re-targeting List Growth – Re-targeting allows you to get your offers in front of the people who are more likely to buy from you. Are they downloading your lead magnets and subscribing to you?

3.      SOCIAL NETWORKING

Social networking is important for all businesses, whether you are just starting out, scaling or expanding into new markets. At this stage you need to connect with other influencers and authorities. Remember, networking is networking, no matter how or where it happens. It can lead to lasting relationships with your followers and potential partners.

The process of Social Networking:

1.      When you create a new piece of content, or publish a new article to your blog, or have a new offer, create a social media post for the channel you are posting to.

2.      Create native content for the channel you are posting on.

3.      Share content of your peers and even your competition, if it relates to your business, brand or industry and if it can help your followers.

4.      Engage with people one on one. Ask and answer questions.

You will have plenty happy followers if you take a similar approach. When you share useful content from other brands, you build good will and strong alliances with the brands you share.

Goals for Social Networking

·        Share content that fills gaps in your own content.

·        Create good will with brands that are similar to yours.

·        Over time, transform that good will into profitable partnerships.

Metrics to Measure your Social Network

·        Number of Inbound Links – A strong network will result in more quality backlinks to your content. 

·        Number of Media Mentions – Consider who is mentioning you or your brand. What you are being mentioned for as well as the relevance and value of those mentions.

·        Number of Strategic Partnerships – Are you reaching out to partnership prospects or are they reaching out to you? How relevant are those brands to your business? How valuable are those relationships?

4.      SOCIAL SELLING

Finally, after listening to your followers, building authority in your space, and establishing a strong network, you can start putting your offers in front of your audience and converting them into buyers.

How does Social Selling Work?

 Social Selling works by using Sales Funnels. Let me explain…

You use multiple channels to get people into your funnels., such as your blog, social media or paid advertising.

You create content targeted to a specific audience, in that content you embed opt-in offers. This could be a lead magnet. You will also promote that offer on social media.

Your social promotion will direct traffic to your content and offers.

If prospects respond, you will immediately make a low-priced product offer designed to convert your new lead quickly into a customer. We call this entry-level product a Tripwire.

What if a prospect doesn’t respond to your offer?

 Not to worry, you can re-target them with relevant ads so that they will see your content and offers multiple times and if you are on multiple platforms, they will see your offer on multiple platforms as well.

The ad will take them to a funnel where they’re offered the same or related lead magnet and then an entry-level product.

Also, you should try to up-sell and cross-sell to existing customers. For example, if they buy a coffee table, they are probably in the market for new sofa’s.

Re-target them with the next logical offer. You don’t want to create just one offer. You want to create a buying path that boosts the lifetime value of that customer and every customer.

Goals for Social Selling

·        Grow your email list with leads

·        Get new customers

·        Up-sell and cross-sell to existing customers

·        Increase buyer frequency

Metrics for Measuring Social Selling

·        Number of Leads – Does your email list show growth over time?

·        Offer Conversion Rate – Are your offers converting?

·        Buyer Frequency – How often and how much are customers buying from you?

Remember to fully immerse your followers into your brand on all your channels.

Social Media Topic Map

Relevance and focus are key if you want to succeed in marketing. A Topic Map helps you stay focused and relevant while narrowing down the topics you post about and therefore increase engagement.

It works like this: Take your brand, products, services, offers and your primary message. Now figure out the topics that are “on brand” to discuss on social channels.

Long-Tail Media Outreach

This is when you earn mentions from many small media players such as bloggers or podcasters, instead of few mentions from larger media players.

Your traffic might increase after a mention from a large media player, but it will soon return to normal. However, smaller media players have a very targeted audience that actually listen to them, so a mention from smaller media players will work better in your favour.

Figure out who are the influencers in your industry and who are listening to them. Are they competitors or potential partners? Then build relationships with the smaller media players who are a good fit for targeted outreach.

Metrics for Measuring Social Media Success

We have discussed the specific metrics you should be watching for each stage of the Social Cycle, but here are a few more metrics that will help you measure your overall Social Media success.

·        Applause Rate – Wouldn’t you agree that every form of social share and mention is applause? How many shares and mentions are you getting on all your content across all your platforms?

·        Traffic by Channel – You need to know where your traffic is coming from. Buzzsumo is a tool you can use that will tell you from which platforms you are driving how much traffic. A lot of engagement means that your audience is interested in that topic. Less engagement means that you've missed the mark. Find out what your audience wants and do more of it.

·        Conversions From Social Media – once you know the amount of traffic coming in from social media, you can calculate your social media conversions. Use this formula:

[Traffic from Social Media] divided by [Total Traffic]

The higher your conversion rate, the more successful your social media marketing is.

Conclusion

Whether you like it or not, we live in a social world. Your customers are talking about your brand, products, services, offers and your industry online.

Are you listening? Are you Influencing? Are you Networking? And are you selling?

If you want to succeed with Social Media Marketing, plan and implement your strategy around the Social Cycle discussed in this article.

Another, more direct way to have conversions with your prospects and customers is with Email Marketing. In my next article, I give you all the information you need to know regarding Email Marketing best practices. So don’t miss it.

Comment below and let me know what your favourite part of Social Media Marketing is and what strategies you employ.

Happy Marketing!