Why do I need a Social Media Strategy?
Introduction
In today’s digital age the average consumer is spending in excess of 2 hours a day on social media. According to smartinsights.com research shows that 43% of people have increased the time they spend on social media during the lockdown. They are using it to communicate with friends and loved ones, find news and entertaining content but also to find out about products and services they never knew existed or didn’t need before.
But, those consumers are a savvy bunch they are not looking to be sold to and want to find valuable content that enriches their lives and informs their purchase decisions. If you are reading this you have probably identified that there is a bit more to social media for business than posting the occasional selfie or product offer and crossing your fingers.
In this article, I outline how and why a Social Media Strategy vital for your success.
A Social Media Strategy will save you time
Yes, you will need to invest time and money at the beginning of the process and look inwardly at your business and at what your customers want but the longer-term outcome is that you will have a consistent strategy and plan that meets your objectives, can be planned in advance and measured so you understand what is working and what isn’t.
You will understand what your customers want and need
A robust social media strategy will involve an element of customer research and the development of User Personas. This will enable you to get to know your customers better and develop content that answers their questions. Rather than a vague idea of who you are speaking to you will have defined person in your head and be able to formulate and answer the questions they ask. I recently ran through this process with a client and we came up with 200 pieces of content around one of her products and that product was pensions!
You will have the confidence to stay visible
If you are a service-based business provider you will need to promote yourself as part of your service. Unless you are lucky enough to have a unique business the likelihood is your customers will have 100’s of photographers, accountants and coaches to choose from. Why they choose you and choose to stay with you will be down to the relationship you build with them as well as the service you provide so if you are showing up and adding value you will become a trusted source of information for that person before they have even met you.
As you begin to see the results and better understand what resonates with people you will be inspired and motivated to keep ongoing.
You will be able to ditch the overwhelm
By understanding where your audience hang out you will be able to target them in the right place and at the right time. This will focus you on those 1 to 2 platforms your audience is actually using and enable you to plan and produce content accordingly.
You will understand what works and why!
One of the great things about social is you can track the journey of your audience and find out information about them that can be used to understand their buying habits and help you to formulate new products and services. In theory, this is great but if you don’t understand what to look out for you won’t be able to measure your progress effectively. A social media strategy will help you to define those objectives and focus on the relevant insights.
It will put you ahead of your competitors
If you lack direction and are inconsistent the likelihood is that people will be drawn to your competitors because they won’t understand what you do nor will you have established that ‘know, like, trust’ factor and a need for your products and services.
“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media. The question is, how well we do it.”
Erik Qualman
It will help you to repurpose content
Continually coming up with new content is time-consuming and that’s time that could be spent doing the work you love to do and focussing on other parts of your business. A strategic approach to your social media will enable you to identify and share the content you already have. Repurpose and reuse what has worked previously and identify successful content that can be used elsewhere.
It will help you to build collaborations and create meaningful relationships
Social media is all about storytelling and creating a two-way conversation. A social media strategy will help you to understand who you need to talk to, what you should talk to them about and who and what your audience is influenced by. This will set you on the path for high-quality organic growth as well as given you more content to share.
It will drive sales!
It takes between 8-12 points of contact before someone will buy from you! (yes – you read that correctly!) In today’s Digital World we are constantly surrounded by brand advertising and messaging. No one is entirely sure but it is estimated that the average person sees around 6,000 ads a day and that’s not to mention all the organic content and emails we see from friends, clients and colleagues.
Obviously, there is only so much content that our brains can process so the rest will just be filtered out and forgotten. So if your content isn’t consistent, on-brand and of high quality you won’t be memorable.
If you want to get clear on your social media strategy and use it to build your business and your confidence. You can find out more about my new course: Unlock your Social Media Confidence: 4 steps to sales with your social media strategy.
The course starts on 18th October and is designed to take you from zero to social media hero in 4 modules.