Social Media Marketing is not One-Size Fits All.

If you're new to business or attempting to learn how to market your company on social media, you will find out very quickly that everyone has different opinions on what you need to be doing. Should you be posting once per week, once per day, three times per week, or three times per day? What about stories? Which platforms should you be on? Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, or any of the other social media platforms out there? Should you run ad campaigns or not, and should it just be one ad, or multiple with re-targeting that uses all the pixels and insights? How complex does your pixel programming need to be? Should you have conversion points and steps build into your website for every product or service? The list of options and opinions can go on, and on, and...on.

So which of these are the right way to do it? The reason there are so many options on how to do this, is that social media marketing is not a one-size fits all system. Yes, there are basic components that will be beneficial for all companies, but the effectiveness of the overall strategy is what we want to focus on here.  

HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGY- (Who. What. Where. When. Why then How)

The first step to building your companies social media marketing plan is connecting the right "Who" to your "What". If you don't know who you're trying to reach, then it's like playing darts with a blindfold on, without even knowing if there's a dartboard around you. You MUST take the time to clearly define "Who" you're trying to reach, that they are people who actually care about, or want your "What". If you're selling $15,000 designer watches, you shouldn't be targeting 12-25 year-old's in school, as the probability of them ever buying one is less than winning the lottery. If you're selling action figures of the latest video game, you're probably not going to be advertising to anyone above the age of 40. If you're someone who thinks that everyone is going to want your product and there are no demographics, then you need to reevaluate.

Step two is figuring out "Where" your target demographic is on social media. The people that are looking for $15,000 designer watches, probably aren't hanging out on TikTok, or Twitter, but are likely to be on Facebook, some on Instagram, and maybe a few on Pinterest. The people looking for gaming action figures are likely going to be on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter or TikTok. You have to have a clear grasp of the culture that is associated with each platform to determine which platform is going to be the best fit for your company.

Step three is "When". Knowing when to post, or have your ads run is just as important as where, because you're got to make sure they are running when the right demographics are online and likely to see your post or ad. If kids are in school, you don't want to advertise the action figures during that time as your target demographics won't be online.  Additionally, the social media algorithms have systems built-in to determine how long they show a post for. If you make a social media post and no one interacts with it right away, that tells the algorithm that it's not a good post and it won't be shown to anyone else. This is why you wouldn't post about the action figure during school hours when none of your demographic is online.

Step four is "Why". Without a clear "why" statement, no one cares about what you're selling. The "Why" is the solution to a need, problem, want, or idea. It's what fills the void in your customer's life. FYI, "Because it's great" is not a valid "Why" statement. If you can't clearly articulate the benefits to the demographic you're trying to reach, then it doesn't matter if you've got the when and where figured out because they are likely not going to purchase it.

Finally, the "HOW!" This is where you take all the above information and lay it out in a clearly defined plan (see our other blogs on how to execute on plans). This is where being able to look objectively at what you are offering and to who, is important. How important is what you're offering to your target demographic? How interesting can your social media posts be? For example: If you're in the mortgage industry, there is no reason for the average person to care about seeing mortgage-related posts three times per day; and in reality you may become annoying and either the algorithms, or people will start blocking you. However, if you're able to provide relevant, entertaining, or compelling information more often, then you may be able to do a higher volume of social media posts. The "How" is extremely subjective and there are additional factors of maintainability, and return on investment to take into consideration. Yes, you can spend 5 hours per day posting multiple times on every platform and get business from it every so often, but if it averages out to you making $5 per hour was that worth your time?  

When we are building a social media marketing strategy for our clients, we always look to see what will deliver the greatest ROI up front. We go after the low-hanging fruits first and once we have that, then we can look at expanding into the areas with a lower ROI so long as they still drive results. Some of our clients start with our Progressive Plan, which is a single post per week, on the primary social media platform that their target demographic is on, combined with a basic ad campaign. This is great for those who may not have a super active lifestyle or company that is, simply put, what may be considered boring. This prevents an overload of social media posts that simply don't gain any traction. However, the ad campaign will be able to reach their target demographics with the information they are wanting and needing without getting annoying. Others may benefit from our "Essentials Plan" which offers posting content on multiple platforms with multiple ad campaigns. It all depends on what social media marketing strategy will actually work for your company. This is something that isn't always easy or straightforward to figure out on your own, especially if you have a hard time looking at things objectively without your personal biases getting in the way. Having an outside company look at things for you, and who focuses specifically on social media marketing and strategies, is often a wise choice for companies.  

To summarize:

Clearly define what your product is, and who you're selling it to. Figure out where and when your clients are on social media, why they will want your product or service, and finally, how are you going to be able to reach them best. If you ever need help, Manski Media is here to help you out!