What Works in Social Media Marketing

I don’t know if this happens to you but to many others like me it does: sometimes you don’t know where you are aiming for with your social media efforts and you stress wanting to be everywhere.

But we are not God, and therefore we cannot be everywhere at all times. Even when you use automation tools.

For your social media marketing to give results, you need to do it well and maximize the time you devote to this shop window to the world.

Without being overwhelmed and obsessed by what others are doing.

We don’t want to spend our entire day on social media, otherwise who’s going to do the real work?

That’s why we have to carefully plan what we publish, where we do it and how often.

Today I come to the rescue by giving you some advice to maximize the time and resources you invest in social media since the day has 24 hours and you have to sleep and eat from time to time.

I must admit that I don’t always put all these tips into practice, but I try to stick to them as much as I can.

The first thing you have to ask yourself is: is it worth investing time in social media when you have a business?

And the answer is (I write it with big characters so there’s no doubt about it):

YES it is worth investing time in social media

Social media marketing gives you the opportunity to ‘humanize’ your brand so that people see who is behind it.

Even if you sell to other businesses and not to the end customer (what we call B2B), being active on social media is very important, as it allows you to maintain a conversation with your audience and make your brand known.

In the end, behind a company there are also people, and it’s people who make the decisions, not robots (for now).

Opening your company to social media is also a way of doing a psychological study of your friends, differentiating those who help you by sharing your posts and those who don’t.

For example, I have never asked my friends to give me a like or to share my contents, and there are those who do it of their own free will.

I haven’t stopped talking to those who don’t, although it has helped me to get an idea of the levels of empathy of each of them😉.

Jokes apart, social media marketing is vital because it simply allows you to promote your business in an effective and cheap way.

As we said before we are not God, so we have to choose those channels we want to be in and the type of content we want to share in each of them.

Let’s see below how to choose the different channels.

Most used social media platforms

In this subject you’ll find a multitude of opinions. Some people will tell you that YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter is better than the rest.

On this graph taken from Statista we can see the importance of the different social media platforms according to the number of users.

Most used social media channels

Facebook and YouTube are still the kings of the mambo.

In the end there are 2 factors you must take into account when choosing a platform, since you cannot be in all, and you should not even try to do so.

These 2 factors are: the preferences of your ideal customer and your own ones.

And forget about the statistics.

The different platforms have their own nuances and details. So it’s better to master one platform before considering publishing on another.

The first thing you have to do is to study which platforms your ideal customer uses, that is, where does he spend more time.

You can find out this by talking directly to your current customers and researching each platform for comments and type of content.

Then you have to take into account the personality of your brand and which formats you are most comfortable with.

Don’t get depressed if you hear that video is what works best and therefore is YouTube where you should be when you don’t feel comfortable getting in front of a camera.

By writing useful and entertaining posts you can also gradually increase your audience and convert more customers, so for you Facebook or LinkedIn may work better.

You may feel more comfortable sharing stories on Instagram because you know your ideal customer is also there.

The most important thing is to feel at ease with what you are doing and to be where your potential customers spend more time.

Facebook works very well to build a community and it’s an essential tool to study your ideal customer’s behaviour.

Facebook groups work very well, not only to study your buyer persona but also to offer your help answering questions from others.

By doing so you can gradually build up your authority on a certain niche.

Instagram is also a very good tool because it mixes the personal with the professional.

People like gossip, we love to find out more about people we follow.

After you’ve chosen 2 or 3 platforms (I don’t advise you to be in more, because it will simply eat up your day) we’ll see what kind of content you should share.

Keep your ideal customer in mind at all times

As I never get tired of repeating in all my posts, you need to know what your ideal customer is like if you want your social media marketing strategy to succeed.

It’s about outlining your buyer persona with the characteristics and demographics of your ideal customer.

You have to ask yourself what kind of problems and concerns this person has so that you can help her with your content on social media.

It’s also important to know the demographic group (age, gender, educational level, etc.) to make sure that if you create campaigns they are aimed at your target audience.

If you want to know more about how to study your ideal customer in order to make an outline as close as possible to the reality of your buyer persona, download my guide on how to write sure-fire web copy. In it there is a section dedicated to the buyer persona.

How_write_sales_copy

Download the guide here.

Once you are clear about who your ideal customer is, you will be more able to elaborate the contents of your social media.

You will also be in a better position to take advantage of the paid traffic methods provided by social media platforms, such as ads.

The Buyer’s Journey

Whenever we buy something we go through several stages.

In marketing this is called The buyer’s journey.

The buyer's journey
For your digital marketing strategy to succeed, it's important to ask yourself at which stage your customers are. Click To Tweet

Knowing this information will help you define your goals.

Decide what your goals are

Many businesses have fallen into the trap of ‘Likes’ or ‘Shares’ believing that a greater number of these always equals an increase in sales.

But many Likes don’t ensure an increase in income.

If the content is not in line with the type of customer and their stage in the buyer’s journey, sales will not increase as easily.

For your investment in time and resources in social media to pay off, you need to be clear from the start about what you want to achieve.

In general, there are two main goals you can expect to achieve with social media marketing:

1. Brand Recognition

2. Conversions

Assuming you combine content marketing with social media, how exactly will you generate results?

Much of this is focused on being clear about what stage your target customer is at, and generating content that is right for that customer at that particular stage of the buying journey.

If you’re creating content for potential customers in the Awareness stage, you need to think about why people need your offer in the first place.

You’re trying to clarify a problem that your target market doesn’t even know about.

So you have to share content that underlines that problem or need, with cases and examples for your potential customer to identify with, since he/she agrees that the same thing happens to them as well.

For example, a lot of my content talks about what copywriting is and how it can help increase sales.

Many businesses still don’t know that this technique for writing persuasive texts exists and that it has been used successfully for many years in advertising.

In your case you should ask yourself if your target audience is aware of the problem and create content that talks about that particular problem.

For example, in my case, my potential customers are businesses whose sales are stagnant because their texts are not persuasive enough and don’t express clearly the benefits of their product.

If, on the other hand, your potential customer is in the consideration phase (he is aware of the problem he has but wants to get more information about the different solutions out there), you should create a type of content that talks about the benefits of your solution.

To do this you have to describe with examples, and showing more than mentioning, how that person’s life will improve when he or she tries your solution.

The content you create for the audience that is in the decision phase should focus on highlighting your unique value proposition, that is, highlighting how your solution differs from other brands that propose similar solutions.

To do this, you have to carry out a market research and study what these other brands propose so you can find and highlight your unique value.

All businesses, like people, have something that makes them unique, and it’s your job to find it and know how to highlight it on social media.

You can do this combining text with images and if you can also videos.

Continuity

For your content and social media strategy to work, you need to develop a calendar and make sure you stick to it.

It’s no use publishing a lot of things every day for a month if you’re not going to publish anything for the next 2 weeks.

Your audience needs to hear from you often. Take it as if you were one of their friends, you’re not going to disappear overnight, are you?

For your potential customers to decide on your solution you have to give them the information they need and make them feel confident that they have chosen the best for themselves.

They have to be able to count on you and your content because you always share more or less with the same periodicity.

But, be careful, it’s not about sharing something, whatever, as often as possible.

Many people get easily tired of those brands that publish something every day just for the shake of it. They are more often than not a pain in the ass.

In my view, you should post something at least twice a week so that your audience doesn’t forget about you.

But it’s your choice.

Conclusion

Social media marketing can be very advantageous when it comes to making your brand known and increasing sales, but you have to have a well-defined strategy not to waste too much time on it.

In order to save time there are tools that allow you to share content automatically.

I don’t have a predilection for any particular one so do your Google search and read some opinions to know which are the best.

Social media can be a hell or paradise, it all depends on you.

Have respect for your audience and share only value, don’t join the brands of the type “I share for the shake of sharing” because you may get the opposite result and push people to run away from you.

Share with conscience.

Virtual hugs.

Sobre Elena de Francisco

Siento un placer inmensurable aplastando textos zombis que no dan resultados y transformándolos en textos llenos de vida que provocan muchas ventas.

About Elena de Francisco

I find real pleasure in crushing zombie copy that doesn’t provoke any emotion and turning it into vivid words that convert prospects into smiley paying customers.

2 Comments

  1. Social Media Marketing

    Great information Thanks for sharing this article. This blog is very informative. It really helps those who are struggling in Social Media Marketing. I have already followed your blog.

    Reply
    • Elena de Francisco

      Thank you James, I’m glad that you found it helpful. Thanks for following.

      Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *