Social media marketing has emerged as a must-have marketing strategy for all businesses. The online space is such a critical space that it is hard to ignore it. Social media marketing does not mean simply pushing out content and hoping to gain more followers or engagements on a platform. It is much more than that. To get the best out of social media marketing, it is essential to understand the different stages of social media marketing. If you plan to work on social media marketing, you must take care of the following stages.
1. Scope
It is the first step of social media marketing where you work on exploring the scope of the campaign. In analysing the scope, you consider where the Cool Photos of your brand will look good. Pushing out the content as WhatsApp Status might have a limited reach. On the other hand, creating an Instagram Reel out of it might have a better reach. After deciding on the best platform, clear and actionable goals and a proper plan must be worked on. This will act as a guiding factor for the other stages. You can also consider other campaigns you have run to make the necessary changes to benefit your business further. Also, in this stage, you understand your target audience and see how you can align the needs of the audience with the needs of your business.
2. Develop
You start developing content for the different social media posts at this stage. If you are trying to target more than one social media platform for the marketing campaign, we recommend you curate different types of content for the different platforms. It is because content that might work well on Instagram might not produce the same result on professional platforms like LinkedIn. Also, you can develop content for an entire week or month, schedule it, and eliminate the efforts to post all the content manually. In the development stage, you not only work on creating posts but also relevant hashtags and captions to go with it too.
3. Implement
After developing the content, you are ready to push it out in the online world. It is the implementation of the social media marketing campaign. One common mistake is that many marketers assume that the job is done simply because the content is for the audience to view. It is not the case. Engagement plays a critical role in this stage. Supposedly, you have posted something on Instagram and received a comment. As a marketer, it is your job to engage with the customer. Obviously, it is not possible to engage on an individual level if the number of comments is incredibly high. However, still, you need to engage with a certain percentage of your followers to let them know that you value them. Engaging in this way, also can be helpful for word-of-mouth marketing.
4. Evaluate
After each social media marketing campaign, it is important to evaluate the entire campaign. How much money did you spend on it, and what was the return? Even though gaining followers and engagements indicate you are experiencing growth, it is also vital to see whether your sales have increased or not. While evaluating, it is also essential to analyse what type of posts or campaigns worked well for your brand. It is only with a proper evaluation that it is possible to run even a better social media marketing campaign next time.
5. Follow-up
It is the last step of social media marketing, where you check whether the recommendations you have made after evaluation are followed. Follow-up with your team or audiences can give you an insight into what further needs to be done to achieve the social media marketing goals. Further, if someone is interested in buying the products or services after engaging with a post, it is essential to have a proper follow-up for making an actual conversion.
While creating social media posts, ensure that the posts prove helpful both for your audiences and your brand. Only when the audiences see their benefit will they prefer to connect with your brand. The aim of social media marketing should always aim to keep increasing the number of followers, engagements and sales. It is only possible to do it when all the stages of social media marketing are taken care of.