You know I love me some social media. It’s free, it’s accessible, it’s tailorable, and it’s a great way to tap into a massive yet targeted audience. But social media can’t be the be-all and end-all of your marketing efforts. It’s just one organ in the body of your customer relationship management machine.
To get the most out of your social media activity, you need a healthy marketing ecosystem in place. Before you start tweeting up a storm or dancing around on TikTok, make sure you’ve got these five things scaffolding your hard work:
1. Strategy. Sure, you can jump in head first (sans water wings) and hope for the best. But you’ll get way better results if you step into the social media realm with a plan. Set some quantifiable, measurable goals such as X book sales or Y podcast downloads. Once you’ve named your goals, you can test different approaches or spy on the competition to figure out how to achieve them. Fuzzy goals like “more fans” make success hard to define – and recreate. (Protip: If you don’t know what your goals are, talk to your friendly neighborhood social media pro (hi!). But don’t take that leap of faith without an end-point in mind.)
Another key point that’s worth mentioning is in order to understand where to build your strategy from, you have to know where your starting point is…that’s why we offer Pulse Checks to personal brands and corporations alike so they can understand what their numbers are saying right now and how to align them with attainable goals going forward.
2. Audience. Even Kylie Jenner can’t brag that her audience is “everyone.” Yep, even the mega-famous have a specific group of people they’re trying to reach. Take it from me (and probably Kylie): knowing your audience makes it so much easier to figure out what you should be saying or doing. Start by pinpointing your “ideal” fan and developing a customer persona that describes who they are and what they’re all about. Give ‘em a name, print out a stock photo of them, and stick it to your monitor. The next time you write something, write it for that person specifically. Knowing your audience will help you figure out if you should bother with that meme or whether to swap out that pop culture reference for a different one.
3. Consistency. Even if you hit it out of the park with a viral post, you gotta keep producing. The more content you have out there, the more of a presence, the more chances you’ll get to turn those one-off viewers into loyal fans. And from a tech perspective, algorithms love to see predictable timelines and routines – and will reward you for it by surfacing more of your work. So keep creating, producing, measuring, and adjusting. Do more of what works, and keep on doing it on your own sustainable schedule.
4. Human connections. The key to social media is in its name: it’s social. Make sure you’re using your online presence to create real-life relationships with actual humans. You’re not on a stage performing Shakespeare (unless that’s your niche). You’re connecting, engaging, and conversing with people. So respond to comments, remix Reels, and chime in on interesting convos – don’t just be selling into the ether, friends.
5. A website. Social media might be where the conversations start, but your website is where the conversions happen. Before you start posting content, make sure you’ve got a decent-looking website ready to capture email addresses or leads. Even a solid landing page works. Remember, social starts with “cold” leads, whereas people on your website are “warm” leads that are more likely to convert. There’s also the risk that something funky could happen with our fave social media websites and all those hard-earned followers could go *poof*. You don’t “own” those followers, but you can own their email addresses, so get collecting ‘em like they’re Pokemon! Gotta catch ‘em all.
(Protip: don’t DIY your website unless you know what you’re doing. Outsource it to a pro. Trust me. We know some people!)
Got those five pieces of the social media jigsaw puzzle ready to slot in place? Then you’re ready to start posting! Let’s goooo! If you’re still a bit iffy on where you stand, book a Pulse Check, and let’s walk you through where you are today in order to shed light on where you need to be tomorrow.