In this article, you are going to learn about the most effective social media marketing strategies

The key ingredient for doing social media marketing well is having a strategy.

To achieve greater results while using social media; you need to understand what your goals are, where your target audience resides, and what they really want.

If you fail to understand this, then you will be posting on social media for posting’s sake; and at the end of the day might give up when you are not seeing positive results.

Thus, developing a marketing strategy on social media will really be helpful when you are trying to grow your brand or business.

Before you are able to create the most powerful social media marketing strategy, you need to be able to answer the following questions:

• Why is it necessary for me to be on social media?
• Who are my target audiences?
• What type of content am I supposed to share?
• Which of the social media platforms are best for sharing those contents?
• What time is best for sharing my content on social media platforms?

You can create a template or use a notepad to write down your marketing strategy, and feel free to modify them as you learn about new adjustments you must make.

You can as well have a strategy for each of your social media channels, for example, a Facebook marketing strategy, an Instagram marketing strategy, etc.

Let us now use the answer to the above questions to develop our powerful social media marketing strategies.

What is your social media goal?

First and foremost, you need to know clearly what your social media goal is.

Generally, there are 10 social media goals you need to have, and they are:

• Growing your social media followers.
• Increasing awareness for your brand or business.
• Driving traffic to your blog or website
• Increasing your blog signups or product sales.
• Boosting your brand engagement.
• Building a community for your brand or business.
• Provide social customer service
• Get press coverage.
• Listen and react to conversations about your brand
• If you have more than nine social media goals, you are likely going to succeed in your social marketing strategies.

As a matter of fact, you need to pursue these goals bit by bit; unless you have a team that’s going to handle those other goals and make it a bit easier.

The most effective social media marketing strategies.

Below are the most effective social media marketing strategies you should use today:

1. Know who and where your target audience is.
2. The type of content you are going to share.
3. The best social media platforms you should use.
4. The right time for sharing your content.

1. Know who and where your target audience is.

When you understand your target audience, you will be able to know the type of content you will be able to share as a means of achieving your social media strategy.

The most important factor in understanding your target audience is to know the average users of the various social media platforms online.

For instance, Facebook has an average user of 65 years or above; while people between the ages of 13 to 29 use Instagram the most.

When you understand the average users of any social platform, you will then be able to use the products or services you offer to determine where people who are likely to use them fall within.

2. The type of content you are going to share.

To understand the type of content you need to create, you have to understand your niche or topic.

Yes! It is your niche that is going to help you determine the type of content you are going to create.

For instance, if you are selling health products, you need to know the many health issues so many people are often facing.

And create content pertaining to those issues.

Another, albeit smaller, thing to consider is the type of content you are going to create.

Are you great at photography, videos, or writing?

Every social media platform has the type of content that works well for them.

For instance, photos are great on Instagram, long-form videos on YouTube, and articles on Facebook.

But again this point is not worth considering much because all social media platforms are evolving to provide almost every type of content nowadays.

3. The best social media platforms you should use.

As a rule of thumb, always remember that your brand does not necessarily have to be on every social media platform.

That being said, it will be very wise to at least establish your presence on the Big 6 social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn because they have the tendency of showing up on the first page of Google search results when people are searching for your brand.

Again, your understanding of your target audience is going to come through the results of your experimentation.

That is to say, understanding which platforms your target audience is most likely active on.

You also need to understand what makes them visit that platform. For instance, teenagers and young adults often like scrolling through Instagram when they are bored to see what their friends are doing or whether their favorite brands have new products.

4. The right time for sharing your content.

Before you can decide the right time of day to share your content; you have to consider the behaviors of your target audience.

Especially, when they usually use social media platforms to find updates on their events or activities.

Here are a few examples to consider:

Football fans are likely going to be on social media just before, during, and just after any football match to find and interact with other fans.

Again, note that football matches are often played on weekdays (Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Thursdays for the champions and Europa’s league) and on weekends (Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays) for other league matches.

Though there might not be a universally agreed time to share your content on social media, it is really going to depend on the general behavior of your audience.

When you have created your social media marketing strategy, experimentation will then help you to find the best time to share your content on social media.