How to create a social media marketing strategy?

Social networks are marketing tools today that if used correctly can create strong connections with the public and for that we must create a social media marketing plan that allows us to organize and program on all the platforms we have at our disposal , to establish an online communication with new users, in order to meet the objectives of our company.

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When planning you should always take into account that the user must be at the center of our strategy, companies that do not have experience in this, usually think of the social network is only used to publish what they want.

Before making the strategies it is important to have a complete knowledge of the internal and external factors that surround our company in social networks, identifying the strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats, this analysis can be divided into:

Analysis of our target audience: we need to know exactly a product, know what solution we offer to users, ask ourselves: Do we have a website? Do we sell online? What do we offer from different in relation to our competition?
Competitive analysis: If we do not have much experience in social networks, analyzing competition can be very useful to take your actions as a starting point.

Set goals: When setting goals you must be aligned with the goals of the company and use social networks as another platform as a means to achieve those goals. The goals could be to attract new customers, increase your sales, retain current customers or attract traffic to your website.

If, for example, the objective of your plan is to make your brand known, your strategy should focus on creating quality content, increasing your presence and your community on social networks, staying active and focusing on your online reputation, you can focus on more than one goal at a time but you have to be realistic and start from goals that can be met.

Design the strategy
After having established the objectives that our markenting will have in social networks, it is time to design the strategy for your business. This is where we must choose the path to follow in order to meet our objectives.
In the strategies we can establish as many objectives as we want to complement each other and then fulfill the objective. Following the previous example if your goal is to make your brand known you can choose different strategies such as: Content creation, content dissemination, content programming or product promotion.

The key to a successful social media marketing plan is to design perfect strategies and implement them through concrete actions, for example, in your product promotion strategy you can establish contests, discounts for specific actions, campaigns for each social network and offers on dates special.

Define social channels: Not all platforms are the same and you must choose the right ones taking into account the product or service you are offering and the potential customer you want to reach, by choosing the ideal channel your competition will provide you with a lot of information about what It is working and what is not working since both are directed to the same client, if you ignore your competition you will lose the opportunity to learn from your mistakes and to be able to replicate your successes. For this analysis choose three or 4 competitors and analyze what social networks and what type of content they use.

It is important to know that not all social platforms are the same, so you have to focus on those that are relevant to your business for example likelink is excellent when it comes to business from business to business or for example Pinterest which is an ideal platform when It's about fashion business.

Build a content plan:
In this step we have to offer users a quality message that really reaches their potential customers for the creation of their content, you can also take ideas from your competitors, it is not about copying and pasting but about taking and creating your own style that make you make a difference. Do not be afraid to be creative, the presence in social networks should be exciting not boring, you can also focus on influential people who have a wide range of your target audience. This type of person has a high level of confidence, so it would be an important strategy to promote the brand, for this you must perform a complete analysis to know which of the influencers is the most appropriate for your product.

Finally, you must develop a solid content plan that offers attractive material, the content must align with your general message and must be appropriate for the channels you are using, it is not only about giving information about your product, it is also about offering real value to your audience, do not limit yourself to a single type of content on the same idea you can create several ways to communicate you can create videos, blogs, images, etc.

The combination of different styles will reach your audience in a much more effective way, in addition it is not about publishing only once, it must be constant on social networks, you must publish new content on a regular basis.

After following these steps you will be able to publicize the brand online. It is important to remember that the presence of your brand in social networks is no longer an option but an obligation if you do not want to stay out of business start to establish the ideal plan for your product or service.