Research You Buyer Personas and Audience
In order to create a strategy, you must determine who your buyer personas (Personas are fictional characters, which you create based upon your research in order to represent the different user types that might use your service, product, site, or brand in a similar way.) and audience are so you can target their needs and interests properly. You do this by thinking about the people you are trying to reach and why, and how you would classify them as a group.
For example, if your business sells trendy leggings and jogging clothing, you might classify your target audience as millennials who like to wear stylish athletic apparel (a style known as athleisure).
Considering your buyer personas and audience will help you determine what content will attract the type of followers/customers your are trying to gain and how to create engaging content to keep them interested.
Choose Which Social Platforms You'll Market On
It is crucial you decide which platforms you're going to share your content on. There is no right or wrong answer, it is more about the needs of your target audience and where they spend their time. And it not only important where your potential customers hang out today, but you also need to keep tract of where they might be tomorrow.
For example, using that target audience of athleisure loving millennials, we know that millennials love handing out on Instagram. So, you may want to focus the majority of your social media efforts on that platform.
Create Unique and Engaging Content
With billions of social media users around the world, there is no question that some of the people checking you out have also checked some of your competitors also. That is why your content must stand out and provide viewers with a reason to click that "Follow" button and begin interacting with your brand.
To help you get started, consider the content your competitors are posting and how you can make your approach unique. Take advantage of the features offered by the particular platform(s) you are using. For example, if your platform allows videos, it could be an opportunity to create a more personalized what to share the latest details about a product launch.
Use your current customers and followers to help you create content. You do this by re-posting their content or encouraging them to use a hashtag to share their own experiences and pictures with your products.
Create a Schedule For Your Posts
One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is to use one of the social media management solution available. These tools allow you to write captions, prepare pictures and videos, and schedule posts in advance. They not only automatically share your content on schedule, but monitor all post interactions for you. They will save you time, so you can focus on other tasks.
Here are some of the most popular solutions:
- HubSpot - offers a tool to help you publish and monitor your content and create connections with your followers. You can schedule your content and compare in-depth reports to understand the performance of various platforms, type of content and posting times.
- Sprout Social - designed to help your team organize and plan content creation, manage campaigns, understand engagement, and review content.
- Hootsuite - platform for finding, scheduling, managing, and reporting on your content. You can schedule post in advance on all of your channels at once and measure your ROI with comprehensive analysis.
How Often to Post
As a rule of thumb, you should only post when you have quality content to share. After all, that is the only way to keep your followers coming back regardless of how often you post. Every business is different, so you'll need to find out what works best for your audience
On the other hand, if you post too infrequently, you're probably going to be forgotten by your follower and if you post too frequently, you'll probably become annoying to your followers. It is a fine balance that you will need to track, because both situations could potentially lead to a loss of followers and thus a decrease in engagement.
Begin experimenting with more or fewer posts, as well as other factors such at the days you post or even the times that you post. Continue doing this until you see a pattern begin to emerge. Then start your schedule around when your followers are active.