Want a social media strategy that will help you in your career or launch a business?
One of the main benefits of social media is to establishing trust and credibility amongst your target audience. If people perceive your product or service to be useful and they trust your brand, they are more likely to purchase from you.
In fact, the University of London researched the impact of social media on consumers and found a positive correlation between trust and perceived usefulness linking to sales.
For any business, this is extremely important. The more engaged your target audience is with your brand, the more likely they are to choose you when making a purchasing decision. Because of this, implementing a proven social media strategy at your workplace or in your business will help you grow in your career. After working for a social media marketing agency, I’d like to share with you an effective strategy that can be implemented today.
1) Attract Your Target Audience.
The first step to developing a strong social media presence is to acquire highly relevant fans and followers. You need to understand the characteristics of people who are likely to buy from you. Below, I have listed paid and organic ways of increasing your fans and followers.
- Launch Paid Advertising Campaigns: Paid advertising is the quickest way to attract highly relevant people. You can be extremely targeted by leveraging the data that Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn has on its users.
- Use Website Widgets: Place social media widgets on your website and make it easy for visitors to follow you on social media without leaving your website.
- Following Hundreds of People: This takes time, but works. If you follow hundreds and thousands of people who you think will be interested in your brand, a large percentage of people will follow you back.
- Use High-Traffic Hashtags: Use hashtags that are relevant to your business, but high in search volume. Your content will reach an expanded audience, increasing your chances of attracting relevant followers.
2) Engage Your Fans and Followers.
As your fans and followers are increasing, you will need to engage them daily with great content. The more engagement (likes, comments, shares, etc.) your content gets, the stronger your connection to your audience will be. High-quality content is how trust is established between your brand and potential customers.
The type of content you should post depends on your target audience. A good rule of thumb to follow is to post informative, entertaining, or inspiring content that is aligned with the interests of your customers. You should aim to be as relevant as possible.
3) Promote Your Products or Services.
Once people trust your brand and you notice an increase in engagement, the next step is to display the usefulness of your products or services. Showcase testimonials, product reviews, and the benefits of your product or services. Advertise content or special offers that will drive people to your website to learn more and possibly become a lead or sale. Here are a few ways you can do this:
- Direct Response Ad: Create an advertisement, target it to your audience, and hope to receive leads and sales as a result.
- Special Offer: Offer a discount or special offer as an incentive to spark action from your audience.
- Promotional Blog: Write a blog about a need that your product solves and list yours as a solution. (Example: 5 Ways to Generate More Leads… Step #5 is to use your landing page software)
These are shotgun approaches to use if your audience is highly engaged. However, if you have long sales cycles, you may want to try advertising less promotional content and more educational content. Focus on deepening the engagement through email marketing, content marketing, and more. Hubspot does a great job at this.
4) Increase Conversions through Retargeting.
After heavily promoting your products and services, you will begin to see higher volumes of traffic on your website. Except now there is one small problem – you will only convert less than 5% of your website visitors on your first visit.
This is where retargeting becomes handy. Retargeting is displaying advertisements to people who previously viewed your website. If you’ve ever visited someone’s website and saw ads from their brand the next day, you’ve been retargeted.
It is done through Google Display, which is partnered with over 2 million websites throughout the website. It can also be setup on Facebook through custom audiences and on Twitter through retargeting tags. Set these up on your website and you’ll see your conversions increase dramatically.
Try a strategy out and see what happens for your business. Good luck!
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Sherman Standberry is the co-founder and chief operating officer for LYFE Marketing,?social media marketing & management company. LYFE Marketing offers?social media advertising, social media management, and website design services to help companies generate more traffic and conversions. Sherman has worked with over 150 companies with social media and website design. Follow him on?Twitter.