How to Build Your Social Media Marketing in 2021

With billions of active social media users worldwide at the start of 2021, tapping into your business brand’s social media marketing network is a crucial step for growth. The power that social media bears and the many benefits offered to your organization includes more engagement, higher traffic to your websites, new leads, and of course, revenue.

Having a social media strategy for your marketing will help guide your business in a way that allows you to track and measure your success expertly. Making social media an integral part of your brand building is important, but knowing how to develop a strategy for that social media is equally essential. 

Many small businesses have not yet discovered or fully tapped into making a social media strategy. If you don’t want to be one of the many, the guide below will provide some helpful steps in breaking down a reliable way to build your strategy for 2021.

Start With Goal Setting

Establishing your goals and what you hope to obtain the most from your strategy is the first thing on the agenda that you need to tackle.  You must have a focus on your “big picture” and what you are expecting to gain. Defining your goals will go a long way in helping you to develop the best strategy to support them. 

Some examples of social media goals could be building brand knowledge and awareness, increasing your engagement, driving more traffic to your websites, or building a loyal customer base. Targeted social media advertising will benefit all of these areas. Use whatever your main goals are to be the foundation of your strategy.

Keep in mind that your goals should pertain to identifying a tangible outcome to understand that what you want to achieve will help your business. Setting yourself up with a timeframe to achieve your objectives is an excellent idea to keep on top of your overall strategy. 

Research Your Competitors

You need to do your homework. Monitoring your competition can provide you with valuable insight about the target audience, specific keywords and phrases (Search Engine Optimization), key hashtags to use, where they are finding engagement, and whether paid ads are being used. 

Identifying rivals can demonstrate who is using social media strategies to further their business efforts. You can analyze and take a look at what is working best for them, what isn’t resonating with their audience, and what tactics you can utilize to adjust your strategy accordingly. Your brand will maximize the effectiveness of your marketing by keeping a keen eye on your competition, zeroing in on what their strategies are missing, and being sure to incorporate it within your own strategy, giving you a more considerable advantage.

Another good side note to take from here is not to research competitors once, twice, or just a handful of times; this analysis should be ongoing. Having a team of those who can track and analyze your competition at all times is going to help you within your brand to locate new opportunities and work on staying one step ahead of the curve.

Identify and Track Your Audience

Let’s face it – most businesses are very client-focused and customer-driven. If you do not have a clear picture of what audience you are reaching, your strategy will not sustain. Organizations need to know their audience inside and out. 

Analytics can provide you with demographics such as age, location, and education. When you begin your social media postings, monitoring the effects will help you hone in on those engaging the most within your social media. You should consistently track who is converting into actual customers and narrow down your audience this way. Social media analytics tools can help you find out how your audience is interacting with your SEO campaigns, what they like, what they are demanding, and much more. 

With this collection of information, you should have a clear picture of your target audience to build your strategy around those specific consumers. Your content will resonate with and engage your audience, converting them into loyal customers of your business. 

One last thing that your target audience can also do for you points you in the right direction of which social media platform(s) you need to focus on for building your brand. There are multiple channels out there, but knowing where the majority of your customers will be will point you to where you need to put your SEO campaigns, curate content, and engage them the most.

Content Creation

At this point, you are ready to create content. Starting an SEO campaign will help you develop content that is consistent with your branding while attracting those who will be most interested in your product or service. Knowing when to post should also be a part of your strategy since specific times and days where your content will reach your audience better. Incorporate a social media calendar with your SEO campaign to get the most of your strategy.

Content will perform differently depending on what social media platform you use. In some cases, videos are more appealing to your audience, but another platform may focus more on your voice or words and SEO language. Across all social media, your content should be unique and meaningful, as well as align with your brand personality. You should ensure that you are correctly reflecting your brand’s persona as well as suit your audience.

Optimize and Grow

Once you have launched your social media strategy, the work does not end. You should continue to track your results and check your analytics to ensure that your efforts in social media marketing are bringing success towards your goals.

Finding what has had the most engagement, likes, and click-throughs will help you to determine where your top-performing content is. The next step would be discovering what is making that particular content so successful and then using it to improve on the next campaign. 

Things change and evolve across social media, so your content needs to do the same. For example, if you don’t see as much growth and you haven’t yet, you might look into running some paid advertisements to increase your visibility and attract new customers. Adjusting your strategy as you go will only aid in helping you to achieve the best results.