Isn’t it amazing how your social media app always suggests a product or service you are looking for? Just a bit of research, then you can go ahead and buy it. Social Media has come a long way in fulfilling many things for us. From connecting with friends or making new friends, following celebrities, showcasing our talent and much more. Currently, Social Media Agency has taken centre stage for connecting products or services with the right target audience.

Thanks to COVID-19, social media has become more meaningful to internet users since it was the only open window to socialize with the world during lockdowns. This upgrade transformed social media platforms into a worthwhile marketplace as well. From micro, small to large enterprises, many businesses are turning to social media to connect with their existing and potential customers. Hence, it is not surprising that digital media ad spending went up to 76% in FY2021 (COVID ERA) from 49% in FY2019 (PRE-COVID).

Another report by Accenture found that 8 out of 10 social media users make purchases on social media. Therefore, businesses of all sizes must have an effective social media marketing (SMM) strategy in place.

However, with more than 200 social media platforms operating globally and new launches every now and then, understanding SMM can be complex. What demands our focus here is that social media has no set structure or guidelines to what will work and what will not. Every campaign is unique in terms of concept and execution, and risk factors remain constant. Having said that, you can build robust SMM with step-wise and goal-oriented objectives. Let us explore them!

Step 1: Increase Brand Awareness

No! you can’t create a business profile and start selling in a single day unless there is a dire need for the product you are selling. The primary objective in the initial phase should be to get your brand name out there. This includes studying the behavioural patterns of your TG and building content that speaks to them and invites them to connect with you. Here your focus must be on the value you bring to them via your existence and, therefore, through your products.

Also Read: Social Media Marketing: A Low-Cost Brand Awareness strategy

Step 2: Grow your audience, organically

On social media, growth in followers can come from two ways – organic and paid. While the paid route can get you many followers instantly, it may not necessarily result in increased engagement or generate sales as you would hope. On the other hand, growing your organic audience way may take some time, but it guarantees authentic engagement, feedback, and improved sales. To boost organic growth, digital agencies take the help of well-researched keywords, hashtags and other techniques to create a pull effect.

Step 3: Boost Community Engagement:

Most consumers prefer to interact with brands on social media platforms because it opens two-way communication and is faster. Therefore, while creating content, your primary goal should not be “spreading awareness” or “educating customers”; rather, it should be lucrative enough to initiate conversations. Index data shows that 46% of consumers think brands that engage their audience are more successful. For example, memes are everyone’s favourite. So, how can you merge the concept of a meme with the product or service you offer?

Step 4: Generate Leads and Sales.

Once your business profile has considerable followers and engagement levels, you are ready to bring forth your products and service. Basis the trust and confidence you have built over time, your followers would be more than interested in knowing what you offer. You can create sales with quirky ideas. For example, you can pre-launch a product in a limited number as an exclusive social media sale or run exclusive discounts on your page only. Influencer engagement is yet another successful lead generation technique.

Step 5: Drive traffic to your site

With significant engagement on your social media profiles, it becomes easier to navigate the users to your company website. Here content marketing strategy can play a vital role. Creating a pull effect for your products, blogs or other offers by capturing the imagination of your audience is a necessary strategy to consider. The best part is you can measure what is working well or what is not. Most social media platforms offer free as well as paid traffic engagement analysis on the profile. These reports include insights such as clicks on the website link and other types of endearment on the post. You can also see the suitable time when your audience is most active on social media and schedule your posts accordingly. An expert digital marketing company also utilizes this data to improvise content strategy on social profiles. The engagement insights can guide you to tune your social media marketing game at the right frequency.

Setting Social Media goals for maximum ROI

This can be challenging because the social media landscape changes every day, sometimes within a few hours. Unlike other media communication plans, social media plan needs to be flexible as it is mostly driven by what is popular or trending for the day. Having the right balance between posting things that you have planned along with keeping an eye on the trend of the day is crucial. Hence, most of the days, it requires social media planners to think and act instantly. Social media marketing demands 24-hour attention, and therefore it is always recommended to have a social media agency on board who can help you build realistic and ROI-focused goals. (source) Other benefits of working with social media agency are:

Accountability:

Ansocial media agency has a dedicated team with different expertise working on your goals. And nothing can go unnoticed as the social media business insights speak volumes for the work done on a daily basis.

1. Utilize budget effectively

Social media agencies don’t just create a content strategy and post it. They also have a deeper understanding of all the tricks and techniques of the industry. By leveraging their knowledge and networking, an agency can help you achieve your goals best suitable for your budget.

2. Paying required attention to data

For the business of the 21st century, data is everything. It offers the required edge a company desires to have. And social media campaigns are all about generating and leveraging data insights. In fact, social media agencies embrace data-driven campaign strategies, automatically placing data in the centre of everything they do. The bonus here is that; these insights can go beyond executing a social plan to actually understand your customer behaviour better.

Conclusion 

Social media is a fast-paced marketing game. Here, a company or person can gain popularity overnight. If a company doesn’t have their social media marketing plans and goals in place, it will always grapple with the exposure it experiences on social media. A goal-driven social media marketing backed by an expert social media marketer always helps you scale up or down the activities or budget in the correct manner; driving maximum ROI.

Author: Megha Malik

As a passionate entrepreneur and creative brand consultant with experience of 14 years in digital, branding and packaging industry, it is my honest effort to put my experiences and knowledge of industry towards readers. A chartered accountant by degree but a marketing personality in blood has motivated her to take in designing industry as a career. With her fun-loving personality and sharp branding skills, she is a great motivational speaker on her YouTube channel, an active member in various business channels offline as well as online. Do connect me personally via my LinkedIn and I love to share my expertise with you.