Social media is constantly evolving, with more followers and more platforms than ever. Equally, your social media strategy must evolve with it. Gone are the days where a simple hashtag or emoji would be enough to gain engagements and followers on your social channels. Today, the best social media strategists use a complex combination of omni-channel marketing, audience targeting and engagement, in-depth analysis and creativity to create approaches that get results.
Innovative ways to boost your social media strategy
Adopt a multi-channel approach
Are you making the most of all your social media channels? If not, you need to adopt a multi-channel social media strategy. The right social channels for you will depend on your target audience and their online behaviours; however, it is unlikely that you’ll find your audience using only one social media channel.
The best multi-channel mix for you will depend on your sector and business goals but we recommend using at least three social media channels to grow your online following, whether you’re on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest or TikTok.
Engage followers and commenters
Engaging your followers and commenters as quickly as possible is an effective way to nurture a relationship with your target audience, but that isn’t the only reason you should do it. With so much content to sift through, social media platforms use algorithms to determine what they should display to users. For example, both Facebook and Instagram use engagement as a key metric for determining whether content should have a prominent place in user feeds, or be buried. Comments form a major component of engagement.
You can also use your comments and replies as a way to assert your brand voice, and to further distinguish yourself from competitors. After all, users are more likely to buy from brands that they follow on social media.
Pay attention to your social success
As with all marketing strategies, the key to creating a social media strategy that gets results is making decisions based on data. You should pay attention to both on-site and in-platform analysis and insights. For example, a post may garner a high number of likes and shares in-platform but not necessarily doesn’t lead to an increase in CTR or on-site transactions. This isn’t a problem if your primary goal for social media is increasing brand awareness, but if your main objectives are increasing on-site traffic, you would need to re-strategise.
Some useful metrics to bear in mind are:
- Number of followers
- Number of post impressions
- Number of post engagements
- Number of on-site users
- Number of sessions
- Bounce rate
- Number of goals achieved
Use social media to delight your audience
While we often consider the customer journey in terms of the traditional marketing funnel, it reality, marketing is more circular. Growth comes from building positive experiences with existing and previous customers. For example, the average customer will tell 9 people about a positive customer experience. In summary, this means that your customer base become almost brand ambassadors, and social media is an excellent way to foster positive relationships with your customers.
If customers post about your products, like, share and comment on those posts. Incorporate creative ways to delight your audience into your social media calendar using giveaways or fun seasonal strategies such as social media advent calendars. There’s no right way or wrong way to do this, so it’s best to be creative, and be true to your brand voice and image.
When it comes to social media, the world truly is your oyster. But the above guidelines are a great jumping off point if you’re at a loss for how to reinvigorate your social media strategy or continually inspire customers.