Everyone is talking about Social Media like Facebook, Twitter or Google+ or the new buzz Pinterest but do we actually know how relevant is Social Media to your business or brand ? Social Media has become one of the buzziest words attributed to the high importance which many companies ( both small and big ) are giving but the fact is only few companies understand the social media and are able to use the Social Media effectively.
So let us understand how we can make effective Social Media Strategy to market our business or our brand. You need to follow these simple steps to form effective strategy:
- Identify the business goals and Objectives: This can be the most commonly used statement but it is indeed the most relevant step to leverage the Social Media. For example, some use Social Media to market the launch of new product/service while some use it to build relationship with their customers. So first you need to aware what you want to achieve through social media. You might want to roll out the services and at the same time want to use the same social media channels for building relationship also. In short, first pen down all your goals and objectives and break them down into milestones with relevant time limits.
- Research on Social Media: There are numerous social media websites which you might it good for your business for example, facebook and twitter have become the standards of Social Media but there are also other platforms also which can help you in getting the relevant user audience instead of large general audience who browse the internet. Some of the platforms which you might like are stumble upon, tumblr, Pinterest, LinkedIn etc. So research on that social media which gives you more visibility less competition and actual or potential audience rather than large networking pool.
- Creation of Great Content : Now your work begins, create great multimedia content around which you can establish the marketing strategies . Great content can be videos, PPTs, Doc files, PDF files, infographics etc. The more content, the better content, the larger and effective will be your social media. Try to make quality content and original content which will help you in gaining reputation and trust which is very essential to use Social Media.
- Creation of Contact list: If you have followed the above steps properly then you are at a stage where you know what to brag about on Social Media and on which platforms. Now, you need to make the contact list to whom you will be inviting or will be sending emails or SMSs etc. Please ensure that you all relevant tools so that your emails, if any, are not marked as spam by your users email client. It is advisable that you use goods emailing service like icontact, or mail chimp or simply the Php List or any other relevant tool to manage the campaigns and user contact list in efficient manner.
- Increase your visibility and interaction: It is very important that now you increase your visibility on various platforms. Try be at least on 3-4 social media platforms to increase your visibility to reach the potential users. Also, enhance the user engagement by commenting on various blogs, starting new threads on various forums, blogging about the latest updates etc.
- Measure the Social Media Influence: You need to measure the social media influence with various tools like Kred, Klout, Peer Index or Social Bro to understand how your Social Media Strategy is working and what you should do in order to gain trust and reputation.
- Think, Re-plan and Execute: Based on your findings try to think again what better you can do to enhance your social media reach or influence and to be one of the most reputed businesses or brand.
Harsh Mahajan
Founder of TechFanas, Ex-Microsoft Student Partner, Founder and Ex-Leader of Brains Unleashed, developed Krypshield Cloud App, passionate about Cloud Computing, Cloud App development through Windows Azure.