How To Design a Social Media Marketing Strategy for a Local Business

You wouldn’t run full speed into a room that was completely dark right? Don’t take that approach to marketing your business. Below you will find an overview of what you need to consider to develop a strategy that brings the results you desire. At the end of this post there is a list of questions that can help guide you through the process of creating your own personal strategy

Profiles

• You want a profile or page that looks clean, professional, and that contains accurate information. Make sure that what you do and offer is clearly expressed.
• Your Logo, location, phone number and any other contact information should be easy to find.
• Use professional, or professional looking images of the inside and outside of your business, and if possible include photos of yourself, your team and happy customers.
• About Us. Your Page is where you can start to present the Brand Image you defined.
• Determine which Social Platforms are best suited to reach your audience.

Content

• Your content is the first access point to customers, and if you aren’t putting effective content out there, that access is lost and creating connections and familiarity become tiwice as difficult.
• You need a lot. You’ll be posting daily, building an organized content library will make this much more manageable
• Where does it come from? IN-House? Freelancers? Agencies? If you can pump out quality content that stays on message you’re ahead of the game, but this is another area where online tools, agencies and freelancers can benefit you.
• The Message. Stay on Brand. Focus on what you do and topics that are relevant to your industry, or your community and use your content to focus on your GOAL. Informative, Entertaining, Inspiring. Stay focused on those 3 things.

Posting

• This can be time consuming, but you have to post regularly. Timelines and news feeds are flooded. A post from a business is lucky to reach 5% of the people who already follow them, and you need that content to be shared to expand your reach. You have to keep posting, everyday.
• There are a number of tools, ranging from simple content calendars to social media managers and agencies that can all help, explore the options so you can determine what works best for you

Monitoring and Interaction

• Interaction occurs in real time with customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A customer question, good review, even a complaint, all require a professional response immediately, not a few hours later and definitely not the next day. You aren't just responding to one customer, your response (or lack of) molds the impression of your store to the entire community. Be prompt, be professional, provide accurate information and always do your best to resolve customer issues in a way that is convenient for them.
• Monitoring your page, your posts and interaction is a huge benefit of using social media to market your business. Get familiar with these metrics and use them to adapt your approach to ads, posting, and content creation.

Ads

• Budget is obviously a factor, but even a small budget can make a big impact on your efforts. You can use metrics and insights to see what content is most effective and boost posts for more visibility, you can target people that are interested in your products and services. Take advantage of the tools available.
• It’s SOCIAL, so spammy ads, or a spray and pray approach will likely do more to limit your exposure than increase it. Don’t pay for ads to get blocked by someone who, if approached correctly, could have become a new customer.
• Implement your strategy first and be patient. As you start to build a following and generate engagement, the metrics you get from social media marketing will allow you to build a brand, find your market, and focus your advertising on that market. You’ll be able to reach out directly to specific audiences that are the most likely to pay for your products and services.

What it Comes Down To

• Put your pages together, make sure they look sharp and contain accurate info about your business.
• Plan and create or compile your content and start scheduling posts.
• Get used to monitoring your pages and interacting with everyone who engages with your profile, posts, or ads.
• Take some time to understand the metrics (impressions/reach/engagements etc.), then pay attention to your content and any patterns you see. This can relate to the type of content, time of posts, or if the people interacting can be grouped into a target audience.
• Use those patterns to adjust your approach.This not only makes your posts more effective, but will give you a much better chance for a strong return from ads, You’ll know what content works best, when, and with what audience.
• Be proactive, stay on message, be available and be consistent.

Developing Your Personal Strategy

• What are your defined GOALS?
• What is Your defined Brand Image?
• What is the overall message everything should tie in to?

Profile & Content Creation

• How will content be generated? In-House/Freelancers-Curate Vs. Create etc.
• How will the content be organized?Posts, Images, Videos etc
• How will the content be tied to your defined brand image,message and the GOALS?

Posting & Scheduling

• How will the posting schedule focus on the defined Goals?
• What is the process for posting/scheduling posts?
• Will you need additional tools or outside help? Who will have access to the schedule and post?
• How will the brand image and intended message be weaved into the posting process?

Monitoring & Interacting

• How will interaction be managed during business hours, outside of business hours etc?
• How will progress be monitored and reported?
• What are the Key Performance Indicators (KPI”s) needed to define progress related to the GOAL?

Ads

• How will the reporting metrics be used to maximise ad potential?
• What is the ad Budget?
• How will ad creation and scheduling be managed?