It’s not too early to start making plans for your 2014 social media marketing strategy. If you don’t have a social media marketing strategy, then there’s no time like right now to consider how you can incorporate social media into your business branding.
Social media marketing: the new necessity
I’ve offered basic insight into different social media marketing tools in my last several posts, and there are other platforms that I haven’t yet touched on. If you run a business and don’t yet use social media, you should at least be seeing some opportunities to reach out to your target audience using the platforms I’ve profiled so far.
If your business is already using social media in any form, it makes sense to review your current use. Take some time to think about what you could be doing in 2014 to make your social media marketing strategy more effective. Here are a few thoughts:
Research new social media platforms
You may think that if you’re using the “big ones,” you’ve got social media marketing covered. That might be true for you, but social media platforms grow and fail quickly. It really pays to pay attention to the up-and-coming platforms, and re-evaluate platforms on the basis of their performance in your specific circumstances. Right now, Facebook is hitting a sour note with teenage users. If your business caters to the teen consumer and you’re conducting your social media marketing largely through Facebook, you may want to re-think your social media strategy for 2014.
Measure your results.
Measuring marketing effectiveness is always challenging, but if you can find a way to determine how well your social media marketing campaign is going, do it. Measurement may be something simple like charting the number of followers you have on Twitter, or the number of Likes you have on Facebook. Anything that can tell you how well your social media efforts are paying off is worth paying attention to.
Know your demographics
If you’re trying to hit a certain market, it makes sense to determine which social media marketing platform(s) are most popular among that market. If your market is in one place, but your social media marketing efforts are aimed elsewhere, you can see why you might not have as much success with social media marketing as some businesses do. Align your social media marketing platforms with your target users!
Consider outsourcing
Often, a business’ social media marketing efforts start inside the business, and are tended to as an “added responsibility” by an existing staff member. In 2014, consider the benefits of moving your social media marketing responsibilities to a provider whose job it is to sniff out new social media marketing platforms, trends and strategies.
If you would like more information about developing a social media marketing strategy for your business, email our creative director, Dave Ramsell or give Dave a call at (330) 243-0651 for a consultation.
Photo Credit: Svilen Milev, via StockXchng
