The trick to social media marketing is knowing the foundations of what makes it work so well. Making money for your business is a huge pro (and what might be your goal on paper), but social gives companies an opportunity that was harder to come by before smartphones became our best friends.

With social media, you can develop a relationship with your audience in a way that wasn’t possible before Facebook went viral. We get to use social media to talk to our audience and show them we really know our stuff. The right social media marketing strategy speaks to your cold, warm, and hot leads on one platform.

And that’s what leads to revenue.

When people see you as more than a company with a fancy logo and more as a relatable expert in your field (B2B or B2C!), businesses thrive. We’ve seen established businesses use social to increase their audience reach, and we’ve also seen companies come using social (for example, influencers launching merch shops).

Let’s go over the basics of what social media marketing is to build on a rock-solid foundation.

 

What is Social Media Marketing?

 

Social media marketing is a strategy that uses social media platforms to connect with your customer avatar and bring them through the Customer Value Journey. The Customer Value Journey is the 8-step process a customer goes through, from finding out your brand exists to becoming a raving fan of your products or services.

Here’s what the Customer Value Journey looks like:

With social marketing, you’re going to target customers in the first 2 stages of the CVJ, Aware and Engage. Generate awareness of your brand and your marketing campaigns and get your customer avatar to engage with your content (blog posts, podcast episodes, etc.) by driving them to your website.

These are the basics of the social media marketing that you think of when you decide to launch your strategy. But, there are other pros to having a social audience. You can use your audience to discover what your customer avatar wants to learn about and what topics interest them. Using that knowledge, you can create content around it, lead magnets, or paid products.

You can also use your social audience as a testing ground for paid campaigns. Test out copy and ad creatives on your social feed to see how your audience reacts. The content that has the most engagement, views, or conversions is exactly the content you want to put ad dollars behind.

Social media marketing is a huge opportunity for most businesses. Even the most niche industries can find their customer avatars online. But that doesn’t mean they have to.

 

Do You Need to Use Social Media Marketing?

 

It’s easy to say yes to this question and pretend that everybody should be using social. We’ll say confidently that 90% of companies should use social, but there is a small percentage that shouldn’t.

If these are your goals for your business (or the company you work for), implement a social media marketing strategy:

• You want more leads and customers
• You need more revenue
• You’re looking for more social proof
• This is why 90% of businesses have the green light to start a social media strategy. What business doesn’t want more leads and customers?

 

Well, that brings us to who shouldn’t start a social media marketing strategy. If your business is feeling like any of the below, your social strategy should wait while you fix the leaking holes:

• You can’t keep up with the demand for your products or services
• You don’t have the capacity to give your customers a 5-star experience
• You’re a one-person show and you don’t have any extra time

 

If any of these are the case, it’s way more important for you to spend your time plugging those leaking holes (by creating systems, delegating and hiring, simplifying your packages, etc.). Once you can keep up with demand, continue to give your customers a 5+ star experience, and have the time to create high-quality, useful content—then you can implement your social media marketing strategy.

How to Build a Social Media Strategy

 

Most businesses make 4 critical mistakes when they start their social strategy:

• They treat social media marketing as a single discipline (there are 4 equally important parts)
• They use social media as a one-way street, essentially just shouting at their audience
• They jump straight into trying to make a sell (it’s all about providing value first and often creating multiple touchpoints)
• They fail to tie social media marketing to overall marketing goals and don’t align with content marketing and promotions.

 

We call those 4 important parts of social media marketing The Social Success Cycle. This is the cycle that helps you avoid shouting into the void or seeing a 0% CTR. It all starts with Social Monitoring & Listening.

The Social Success Cycle: Social Monitoring & Listening:

 

Social monitoring and listening monitor and responds to customer inquiries and listen for important trends and topics. Here’s what you’re doing in this part of your social strategy:

1. Monitor for and respond to brand mentions (positive and negative!)
2. Listen for conversations around relevant industry topics and engage when you can add to the conversation
3. Find content inspiration based on what your audience is talking about or wants to know more about
4. Monitor for feedback and listen for key trends to improve your product or service

 

The Social Success Cycle: Social Influencing:

 

Social influencing establishes authority in your industry by posting and sharing relevant and valuable content. You want to use your content to provide *BIG* value to your audience. This value is important because it’s building authority within your industry. When your audience reads your content and thinks, “Wow, they really know their stuff!” or “This company just GETS what my problem with [insert pain point here] is!” that’s when you’ve nailed it.

You want your audience to see you as a valuable resource and continue to engage with your content. They’ll share your content and brand with their audience and expand your reach (creating more customer avatars that can enter the Customer Value Journey at the Awareness stage).

 

The Social Success Cycle: Social Networking:

Social networking engages and builds relationships with valuable brands and influencers in your industry. This might sound like an uphill battle now since you might not have a huge audience, but we have a strategy to help you get the ball rolling.

1. Start by sharing valuable content from other industry influencers and brands
2. Create a list of brands and experts in your industry that you’d like to build relationships with
3. Build communication templates and reach out to them where they are most active
4. Create mutually beneficial relationships
5. Focus on WHAT and were your audience will find the most value (for example, sharing tips via an Instagram takeover, going Live on Stories, Facebook, etc.)

 

The Social Success Cycle: Social Selling:

 

Social selling generates leads and sales by connecting a seeking audience with your products and services. This is the part of your social media strategy where you’re running ads to content pieces, lead magnets, and your products. It’s the part tempting you to jump in the deep end of social media… the same day you launch your strategy. But, now you know—there are 3 other very important parts of The Social Success Cycle. Sales is definitely one of them, but it’s not the only one.

• Focus on engaging your audience and speaking to the benefits of your product or services
• Attention-grabbing graphics and videos
• Maintain your consistent brand voice and showcase your personality
• Splinter relevant content into engaging chunks and use calls-to-actions to compel your audience to want to learn more
• Provide value even with your sales posts.

 

That’s the foundation of building your social media strategy.

Remember, everybody was new to social marketing at some point. Even the world’s largest companies had to figure out how to get started posting relatable and valuable content.

Moving forward, you’ll only learn more about your audience, what social content they want to see from you, and how you can use that to give a 5-star customer experience (that drives more sales!).