1. Research your audience
2. Find your brand voice
3. Plan your social media strategy
4. Get the best people to help you
Research your Audience
You may have the most dynamic, well designed, engaging website however it comes to nothing if your not connecting with your target audience or your brand.
• To drive the traffic to your site you need to identify what target audience would qualify for your brand.
• Who has purchased your product or service already. This would entail your audience’s demographics and type.
• If you are starting a new business with a new audience you need to analyze their demographics and personality to decide who will fit your brand.
• An alternative would be to research your competition to get extra insights.
• Making assumptions is dangerous, your research and findings must be backed up with hard evidence.
Find your brand voice
Define your brand by picking three words that captures the personality of the voice you want for your brand.
• Brand voice is one part of your strategy. It relates to your visual platform, your digital presence, your social media connections and your product packaging.
• Every brand has a different writing style. Two great resources for creating a writing style guide are AP Stylebook and Chicago Manual of Style.
Plan your Social Media Strategy
This is probably the biggest branding strategy, it is a corner stone to your marketing plan.
Set social media marketing goals that align to your business objectives;
S.M.A.R.T. goals
Each goal should be :
• Specific
•Measurable
•Achievable
•Realistic
•Timely
This is a good method to making sure your goals actually lead to business results rather than pipe dreams.
Learn as much as you can about your audience
Knowing your audience is the key to creating relative content on social media so that your audience will engage and become loyal customers.
Give RealLife information
When writing content, on blogs , for example, back it up with real data and illustrate facts, along side real life stories about your business, both good and bad.
Research Your Competition
It would be strange if your competition was not using social media as part of their marketing strategy, so it would be a good opportunity to analyze their strategy. If for example they are very strong on Instagram but not on Twitter or Linkedin, you maybe want to concentrate on the other two rather than wasting energy trying to poach customers off Instagram.
Conduct a social media audit
You are probably already on social media but it could be time to evaluate your current strategy.
Ask yourself :
• What is working & what is not
• Who is engaging with you
• How does your social media strategy compare to that of your competitors.
Is your brand consistent
Is your brand sending the same message throughout your social media platforms.Your brand , logo and typeface should be constant so your target audience does not get confused. Consistent branding will create loyalty and trust and ultimately drive customers to your sit, increasing sales and your client base.
Be visual
One of the most dynamic ways of engaging with your target audience is through videos. YouTube is the most popular and is a prime choice of business today. It’s engaging , informative and reaches a worldwide audience.
Instagram is now overtaking Facebook especially amongst the younger generation. Smart phones allow us to capture good quality images and post them instantly. Both these platforms are advantages for your marketing strategy.
Digital marketing is the preferred method over the more traditional method which is now regarded as being slow and a bit stiff.
Seek help from the experts
Now that you have your branding strategy in place it would make sense to seek out the experts to see what they are doing and to engage with influencers in your industry. Why not draw on their experiences and learn from them and who knows you may well become an expert in your business field.