Platform-specific marketing strategies don’t work in isolation!
Good marketing strategies can harness the power of social media features and trends, but always as part of a broader plan focussed on what problem you solve for customers and how you are going to show up consistently with great marketing content for them.
If your marketing strategy starts with: ‘I have a LinkedIn account, so I’ll find the right strategies to market on LinkedIn,’ you may miss that your audience is on a different platform. And if your social media strategy involves ‘using different colours and styles to appeal to platform-specific audiences,’ you may confuse potential customers who are on multiple platforms and dilute your brand awareness.
Tried and true marketing strategies understand your brand and audience and have a consistent message, engagement plan, and regular strategic review. Only when you have your overall marketing strategy sorted should you consider platform-specifics.
Before you start on social media
Social media is a key element of any good modern marketing strategy, but before you even think about a social media strategy, answer these five questions about your business.
- Who is your ideal customer?
Marketing is like dating, especially social media. To get your customers to trust you, you need to know who they are! What platform do they spend the most time on? What are their preferences and needs? What are they searching for online? This information will inform your choice of platform, keyword choices, brand voice and imagery.
- What problems do you solve for your customers?
People don’t buy clothes; they buy comfort, warmth, sex appeal, peer approval, reputation, or even dopamine. So, you don’t just sell jumpers; you are selling a solution to a problem – what is it?
- What are your values?
In the noise of social media, humans seek value alignment. If we find a brand that shares our values, we will assume we like the product, too. Your values can give you a quick way of checking if a strategy or even platform aligns with your brand.
- How do you express your brand voice and image?
Even if you are the only person in your business, stay consistent by creating a style guide. This will also make expanding or outsourcing some marketing much easier in the future. Be sure your brand voice and imagery align with your values.
- What are your unique selling points/how are you different to the competition?
Maybe you are different simply because you are on social media; maybe it’s your 24-hour promise, your recycling service, or that you don’t take yourself too seriously.
Now think about your marketing goals for the next 12 months and use these answers to work out an overall marketing strategy to achieve those goals before you niche down and work out a plan for any one social media platform.
Never compromise your brand or messaging for a trend.
Clients often ask me if they should try the latest trends on TikTok or Instagram. Most of the time, my answer is no. Platform-specific trends can be great if they are on-brand, but they rarely lead to sustainable business growth. My advice is usually along these lines:
Please do:
- Follow trends that align with your brand values and voice if they feel right for you and your audience.
- Learn the features of each social media platform, including how the algorithm works and what formats it prioritises.
- Keep a business record of posts that do well and posts that flop so you can do more of the first and less of the second.
- Tailor your content format and style to each platform to align with your brand and content marketing strategy.
Please don’t:
- Follow trends just because they are popular. You won’t see me in a glam reveal or dancing on TikTok because it’s just not part of my brand.
- Confuse going viral with building your business. One viral post from following a trend may get you a million new viewers, 1000 new likes, or even 100 comments, but if they are not in the market for your product or service, is it worth the effort, even if it was on-brand?
- Compromise your branding or messaging to fit into a trend on social media. Trends come and go. We want your brand to have a consistent message on all your marketing materials.
Ground your strategy in these marketing basics.
Following trends that align with your brand values and voice while remaining consistent and on-brand can be part of your marketing strategy if you have a marketing team with a generous budget. But even then, it should never at the expense of these basics.
High-quality, relevant, on-brand content
Another radical idea here. The quality of your content is more important than your frequency. Yes, some social media platforms prioritise accounts that post regularly or a certain number of times a week, but do you want to be associated with irrelevant or low-quality content? The algorithm will work it out soon enough and deprioritise you anyway so start with quality and build up to quantity.
Optimising your words
Optimising for keywords helps you twofold. Well-researched keywords will help customers find you through social media platform searches and Google, and they will quickly identify that they are in the right place. Try https://moz.com/explorer to see what words people use to find products or services like yours. Remember to set your location, as the words can change between countries.
Engagement and interaction
You might build brand awareness through post-and-run scheduling only, but you need engagement to build trust and convert potential customers into buyers. So, stay around after you post, engage with your audience, reply to comments, and check your DMs daily, at least!
Analyse and adapt
Anytime you try something new with your marketing strategy or social media feed, start with a goal and use analytics to track your performance against it. How successfully did your idea achieve your goals? Did it have an unintended impact? What did your audience respond with? Adapt your strategy based on these insights for better results next time.
At The Social Nest, we focus on proven marketing strategies with consistent social media presence for steady business growth. Book your free introductory social media marketing strategy session today.
