Who Is Your Audience?

Refrain from making assumptions about your audience – instead, analyze your existing social media following to gain insights into their demographics and behaviors. 

Some of the questions you should answer include the following:

• What is their age?
• Average Income?
• Location?
• Interests?

Collecting and analyzing the information you need to understand your target audience can be daunting. That’s why many companies turn to customer relationship management software to store and sort this data. You can also look at your current social media analytics to see who is already following your company. In addition, it can help you learn much about your audience’s posting preferences and interests.

Define Your SMART Goals

As you begin your social media marketing campaigns, you must create goals to help direct your marketing efforts. To define your goals, use the SMART technique. SMART stands for:

• Specific: You need goals for each campaign. For example, you want to increase followers by 30% for the quarter. That can help you gear content to gain new followers. With a specific goal, your content will be effective.
• Measurable: How do you know you are succeeding if you can’t measure your goals? You have to be able to use metrics to track your progress to know if the campaign works or if you need to make changes.
• Achievable: The goals you set should be achievable. Let’s return to the example of increasing your social media followers by 30%. Is that a realistic prospect for your social media channels, or are you being unreasonable with that number and maybe need to lower the percentage for now? Setting unrealistic goals can be discouraging for you and your employees. 
• Relevant:  So far, you have written out specific, measurable goals that are achievable for your company, but are they relevant to the campaign you have in mind? For example, you don’t want a plan to increase followers and then set up a campaign that doesn’t focus on building brand awareness. 
• Timely: When we speak about timely, we mean that you want to put a time frame on your goals. They shouldn’t be open-ended. Having a time limit of, say, increased followers in a quarter will allow you to set specific checkpoints to see how well you’re doing and if you are on track to meet that goal.

There is a lot of testing and trial and error regarding social media marketing. There are many moving parts, and what worked well with one campaign may not work with another. However, SMART goals give you a starting point and a method of checking in.

What Are Your Social Media Marketing Metrics?

Some campaigns will have different marketing goals. That is why you need to determine your metrics as you set your SMART goals. For social media, you may set your goals to be tracked through

• Engagement
• Impression
• Views
• Reach
• Mention

Once you know how you want to measure your results, it is easier to assess the success of your campaign and help create new goals for future campaigns.

Selecting Multiple Social Media Marketing Channels

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, not all social media channels work for all companies. Some businesses thrive on Facebook, while others do better on Instagram or Pinterest. It all depends on where your customers spend their social media time and how you market to them. 

That said, using multiple channels to ensure you reach all your customers is okay. Most people have more than one social media profile, and you can post on different ones to ensure they see you. The great thing about using multiple platforms is that you can use their unique structures to keep your content fresh.

What Is Your Posting Schedule?

Like with blogging content, you need to have a consistent posting schedule. Social media algorithms change and adapt to new trends over time. However, the rule of posting regularly has always stayed the same. Regular posts help to keep your business showing up in customer news feeds, as blog posts can help with organic searches for your website.

Don’t post just anything. You should ensure all content is relevant to your company and marketing campaigns. 

Customers like to see that the companies they do business with want to reach out and connect with them. It feels more personal if the company is on social media regularly and happy to converse with its clients. This leads us to our final point.

Focus on Engaging with Your Customers and Not on Selling

Marketing campaigns aren’t always about selling; that should not be your ultimate goal on social media. However, that does not mean you shouldn’t offer your goods and services, tell customers about sales, or even introduce new products or services on your social media page. Of course, you should, but that should not be the main focus. 

Instead, it should be about engaging with your audience. You should quickly respond to questions and comments so they know you care about them. As I said, customers like it when the companies they work with do that. 

Businesses that do engage with their audiences have seen a high return on investment. 83% of customers value that experience, and it shows. While you need to set up a strategy that works for you, a good start would be to schedule an hour a day to communicate with your customers on social media. If your audience has any pressing concerns, you should answer those as quickly as possible.

Social media marketing is about the customer, not your business. Discovering who your customers are, where they hang out online, and engaging with them frequently are all part of social media marketing. Next week we will continue learning how to effectively market on social media, including finding the best platforms for your business.

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