In the past, social media was all about making friends and building a community. But now it’s about business. The tactics that work best for social media are those that help you build your business quickly and robustly.
Crushing your 2023 marketing goals will mean that you need to develop a strong and effective social media marketing strategy. Having a workable process in place will give you everything you need to make your social accounts skyrocket.
Here’s how to do it:
1. Be clear about your goals
Make sure to spend some time identifying what your goals and aims are, these will form the basis for your entire social media marketing strategy. It is important that you build your social media marketing strategy for 2023. This is the plan that guides your company and allows it to measure success.
For most businesses, social media has become the number 1 marketing strategy to drive sales, increase brand awareness, and build meaningful connections with an audience, so your marketing is crucial to your success and growth.
2. Focus on your followers
With half of the global population now using social media, you are unlikely to find a reputable brand or business that is not using it to build a following, generate leads, and boost their sales. However, creating great content, growing an audience, or increasing engagement when using social media marketing can be tough if you don’t know what you are doing. Pick an area or a strategy that you can manage, and deliver good quality content on a consistent basis. Once you have established your social goals, it is time to take a look at your audience. Keep an eye on your social media analytics, to monitor the performance of your campaigns. You will be able to determine is your content is is not hitting as expected, and you will be able to adjust your content accordingly. You can also use the insights to build your next strategy.
3. Be a Super-Communicator
People follow your brand pages because they want to know more about you and your business. So give your follower what they want by sharing more than just business posts. Show your personal side, feature clients, showcase products and other customers and strive to humanize your business. Communicate clearly and effectively with potential customers and build rapport. This will help you get your message across and build a much stronger following of loyal followers who will ne prepared to engage with you more readily.
4. Be ready to pivot
Social media can be fickle sometimes. Unexpected content can sometimes go totally viral and amazing content occasionally falls flat so you need to be ready to pivot if needed. You can’t afford to be inflexible when it comes time for social media marketing, because the tactics that work best will change every year. As trends and fashions emerge it’s important to keep an open mind about the changes that are happening in the world of social media marketing. Getting stuck on one method of marketing or type of content just because it worked last year or two years ago isn’t always the best approach. As new trends and features take off, or the next big thing comes around, you you will need to be ready for anything.
5. Get creative
Social media marketing in 2023 is going to require extra creativity for business owners and entrepreneurs because the tactics that worked 10 years ago won’t work today. You need to use all of the social media formats and functions that are available to you and make the most of your social channels. Getting your business message out there is important and you need to do it right so that people will pay attention when they see it on social media sites like Facebook, Linked or Twitter. Attractive eye-catching posts are necessary to stand out from the crowd and video content is now a must for marketers and business owners who want to capture their audiences attention.
6. Invest in video
As we just mentioned, video is becoming a social media behemoth with video posts being created in the millions and almost all well known businesses investing in creating stunning video content. If you are not already using social media video channels like reels and TikTok, you are already behind the curve. Video has been rapidly adopted by all internet users, but especially among the younger millennial and GenZ demographic. Over 80% of social media users now watched video content daily, shunning the more traditional forms of social media in favor of interactive and live content. If video is not a part of your social media strategy for 2023, it needs to be, and quickly.
7. Assess your channels
The more content that’s needed for your social media channels, the more time it takes to create it, that’s just a fact. So if you are managing a blog and creating content, generating graphics, and creating images for your social feeds, you may be spending more time on it than you need to as a business owner. Take an honest look at your strategy and social media presence and calculate how much time it is costing you, then ask yourself honestly if that time is better spent elsewhere. If it is, then its most likely time to consider outsourcing your social media management to an external provider. Even though that means paying for content creation, it may be the mor economical choice in the long run as your time can be used on more revenue generating activities.
8. Add a blog
If you haven’t added a blog to your website then you are missing out on traffic that you can gain by ranking for relevant keywords. There is a reason that the majority of business sites have a blog, thats because it works. Written content is still immensely popular and individual pieces that answer common questions or share information are still a great way to align your pages with user search intent. WIth millions of Google searches performed everyday, helpful content can be positioned to respond to those searches and attract more potential customers to your site. If you are not a writer or have no interest in blogging, you can still take advantage of having one on your site by hiring a freelance writer or having a content agency create your articles for you.
9. Adopt Live updates
aking video content to post to social media channels is one things, but you can also make used of the live video feature offered by most social media platforms. Just click record and talk directly to your audience and give them the opportunity to react with you. Instant video can be appealing as followers will need to engage immediately if they don’t want to miss anything. This can be a fantastic way of establishing a direct connection with users, but it also creates a sense of urgency around your posts. The fear of missing out (FOMO) can be reason enough for people to click on your live alert and tune in to your video.
10. Go UGC!
Although it may sound like a college ball chant, go UGC actually means using User Generated Content. Share posts and videos of people buying, receiving, or using your products. Showing happy customers and people interacting member of your team can convert customers who are on the fence about using your business. UGC works well for your own products and for cross promotional brands with other businesses. People trust reviews from their peers far more than other types of recommendation so UGC is fantastic for attracting more business.
As social media trends change and evolve it is important for businesses and brands to keep up with the latest features for their brand. Being at the forefront of technology changes can help you to create content that makes the best use of social media features and trends. For help creating winning content, contact Smarcomms today.
