Do you want to grow your brand’s presence on social media but don’t have the budget to hire a professional? Don’t worry, crafting a successful social media strategy on a budget is achievable with the right approach and techniques. In this blog post, we’ll provide you with 8 do-it-yourself tips for creating an effective social media strategy that will help you meet your objectives without breaking the bank.
Understand Who Your Target Audience Is
Defining your target audience is the first step in creating an effective marketing strategy. To achieve your objectives, focus on reaching the audience that is most likely to convert into customers.
The best way to do this is by defining what makes your audience unique. When you understand the needs and wants of people who are similar enough to you that they might buy from you, but different enough that they actually do buy from you, then you can create content that speaks directly to them.
This process starts with identifying the demographics of your ideal customer: their age, gender, location, and interests. Once this is done, you can start to build a profile of what makes them tick and what kind of content would resonate with them most deeply.
Research Which Platforms They Use
If you’re looking for a platform that allows you to reach a large audience, Facebook is the way to go.
According to Statista, Facebook had 2.19 billion monthly active users as of December 2018. And that number is only expected to grow as more people get online in developing countries—particularly in India and China, where the population is growing rapidly.
Facebook demographics
As of December 2018, Facebook's global user base was made up of 69% men and 31% women (up from 66% male and 34% female in 2017). Men aged between 18-34 were most likely to use the platform at nearly 42%, followed by those aged 35-49 at 39%. Women aged between 18-49 were also active on Facebook but with a much lower rate of engagement compared with their male counterparts (26% compared with 33%). Men aged 50+ were also less likely than younger men to be active on the site but still had a large share of the total population at 21%.
Instagram demographics
In contrast to Facebook's popularity among younger people, Instagram has managed to attract a broader range of age groups. As of March 2019, it had 1 billion monthly active users globally—a figure which was almost double what it had been just two years earlier.
If you're looking to reach a B2B audience, LinkedIn is the platform for you.
LinkedIn has over 500 million members, making it one of the largest professional networks in the world. It's also one of the most popular platforms for B2B users, with about half of all business professionals using it to find jobs or make new connections.
Create Engaging and Relevant Content
First, define your target audience and decide what platform best resonates with them. An example of this is, If your audience demographic is younger, you would clearly choose Instagram.
What are Instagram's best practices?
1. Post consistently. You don’t want to be an account that shows up on a user’s feed and makes them wonder, “Who’s that?”.
2. Don’t over-post—try to post once every three days or so. It's better to have a few posts that really engage with your followers than a ton of posts that don't make sense for your brand or aren't interesting enough to keep them coming back for more.
3. Only post quality content that makes sense for your brand—don't post something just because it's cute or funny or fits into some kind of trend going on right now if it doesn't fit into the rest of what you're doing as an overall marketing strategy.
Use Hashtags Wisely
Hashtags can be the difference between reaching your audience or having them miss your posts. There are a lot of factors that go into getting the right hashtags for your content—and one of the most important is knowing how to find them.
To start with, you need to monitor social media influencers and competitors as well as any relevant influencers within your brand’s niche. This will help you find out what’s trending, which will help you get an idea of what people are talking about. You can also use a social media listening tool to monitor the conversations happening around your brand or niche. You can even use these tools to see which hashtags were successful on past posts.
Once you have this information, it’s time to dig into finding related hashtags. To do this, analyze which hashtags were successful on past posts.
Take Advantage of User-Generated Content
As a modern business owner, you need to explore all your channels.
You likely work with several channels and touchpoints, including your website, landing pages, and social media platforms.
To get ahead with the power of user-generated content, you must inspire and incentivize your customers to contribute.
Amplify with influencers. This doesn't have to cost money. If you see content from an influencer that resonates with your brand, share it!
Collaborate with Other Brands and Influencers
By working together with other brands and influencers, you can create a more cohesive marketing strategy that promotes the end-to-end experience of your product or service.
For example, if one of your customers is a travel blogger, they might write about how they loved staying at one of your hotels while they were in town for a conference. Then, another customer who's planning a vacation could read this post and decide to stay at your hotel too—and also book their conference room through your website!
Keep Your Eyes Peeled for Newsjacking Opportunities
Newsjacking is a powerful tool for marketers. It can help you stand out from the crowd and reach your audience in a way that's relevant to them. By using newsjacking opportunities, you can promote your brand and increase engagement with your customers while they're most receptive to receiving your message.
Newsjacking is the act of taking advantage of an opportunity to increase awareness of your brand or product without necessarily having anything to do with it. It's about seizing on stories in the news cycle and finding ways to insert yourself into those stories so that people are more likely to remember your brand.
Newsjackers know how to leverage current events and tap into trending topics before they're overhyped, so they can get ahead of the curve and be seen as an expert on something before anyone else knows about it.
One way you can use newsjacking is by creating content around events like sporting events, award shows, or political debates (just an example, not always recommended)—anything that will get people talking about something related to your business or industry. Another option is creating an ad campaign around an event like Black Friday sales or Christmas promotions—again, this helps build awareness around a time when people might be interested in buying something from you!
Analyze Your Results
Now that you've done all the research of a social media strategy, don't forget to analyze your results!
The best way to improve is by analyzing the data you collect. Meta provides powerful analytics to see how your posts and ads have performed or how much growth has occurred over a certain time period. You can use these tools to analyze the success of your social media strategy. If something isn't working out, you'll be able to see it in black and white—and make changes as necessary.
We hope this guide helps you get started on your own social media marketing journey!
Rinse and Repeat!
