With 81% of the total population in Australia using social media in 2023, it has become imperative for small businesses to make their presence felt on the medium. Social media marketing allows small entities to compete with the big players by creating content that gets shared and liked by millions. The affordable promotional tool improves brand visibility, expands the reach and helps build customer loyalty through continuous engagement and interaction.
Since it is an ongoing activity that needs frequent content sharing across platforms in various formats, it must be managed. Besides content generation, it requires content moderation, marketing and monitoring. Thus, small businesses need a strategy to manage social media content to reach the target audience effectively and accomplish business goals. Let us understand this in detail with a step-by-step social media management process. It allows businesses to stay relevant and beat the competition.
The goals for social media content should be based on the social media sales funnel. It helps to customise the content according to the stage of the customer journey. If they need awareness, the content will be informative, and if they are at the adoption stage, they need to be delighted with excellent service and care. Thus, the business needs to create messages for every sales funnel step. Simply posting content is not going to grab their attention.
Also, the goals should be set after assessing the competitor’s strategy to ensure you are not lagging in communication. The goals should be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely). For example, generating 20% more website traffic in the next three months.
The platforms for promoting content must be chosen according to the consumption pattern of the target audience. Thorough market research will help identify the customers’ demographics and psychographics and their preferred social media channels. For example, 86% of teens use YouTube, 75% use Facebook and 70% use Instagram. So, you need to be present on all the platforms but pay attention to the ones that are used the most by your target buyers.
Identifying the right channels also depends on the content you will post. For example, if you are creating videos, you must be present on YouTube, and if you are writing informative and long articles, you must use LinkedIn.
The type of content you choose to post on social media must convey the brand story effectively. Thus, Gold Coast SEO experts suggest creating videos, blogs, infographics and images that resonate with the target audience and get shared widely to increase awareness. You need to offer subject matter expertise to build a trustworthy image for the brand and offer valuable content that is useful for the audience. For example, if you sell a food item, you must make videos of different recipes using the ingredient to woo the audience.
It is a good idea to look at the content created by competitors in the same space to get inspiration but keep your posts unique. Your uploads should be able to answer the genuine questions popping up in the heads of the audience and educate them about your products and services. Use a mix of different types of content ranging from Live videos and product demonstrations to customer stories and product blogs.
Scheduling the posts is necessary to organise the constant flow of information. It helps to plan for the entire month according to the upcoming events and social trends to avoid last-minute scrambling for quality content. It helps to build strategic content that meets the needs of the customers. Also, planning saves time and improves efficiency.
Use a template and scheduling tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout Social etc., to create a monthly calendar that has details of daily posts on each platform with time slots, links, tags and content categories. The scheduled posts should keep the timely uploads in mind that must be posted on specific days, such as national holidays, festivals, etc. Also, there should be generic posts that can be used any day. The calendar should have a healthy mix of different types of content to keep the audience engaged.
Videos are the most loved content on social media, and reading a long post is not everyone’s cup of tea. The attention span of users is very short, and the business needs to grab it in a small timeframe. It has to be interesting and eye-catching to make them view, like and share the post. Following the latest trends, adding links and the right hashtags, utilising customer-generated content, running contests, and using influencers are some ways of grabbing eyeballs.
The focus should be on building a community with the users through regular interactions. You must answer their questions, provide an update about the latest offerings and address their grievances. It will help convert them into loyal buyers and enhance community management, increasing ranking in social media algorithms.
Social media channels can be leveraged for direct selling through paid ad campaigns and adding product links to posts on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. If the brand cannot get the desired impressions and engagement on social media, running paid ads is a good way to find buyers. These ads are highly targeted and measurable, which makes them cost-effective.
All the channels have created social commerce pages, such as TikTok Shop, Pinterest Buyable Pins, and Facebook Shop, to help small businesses sell directly to customers. It is also easier for buyers because they do not get redirected to the company website and buy from the social channel.
Small businesses have limited budgets for digital marketing tactics. Thus, they need to monitor social media analytics to know how they perform. It helps them to gauge the engagement levels, the number of likes and shares generated by every post and traffic directed to the website through these channels. All this data allows the SEO experts in Gold Coast to assess the capability of the content and create a strategy accordingly.
The evaluation helps understand what works for the brand and what is not resonating with the audience. It helps to reduce wastage and produce high-quality and valuable content that aids in better engagement. Also, studying analytics helps identify the right promotion channels to make the process more productive.
Social media has become an indispensable part of our lives. With the increasing consumption of content through these channels, it has become crucial for small businesses to adopt a social media management strategy.