Getting Ready to Design a Social Media Strategy
Are you burying your head in the sand? Well, that is no longer an option for those businesses that are reluctant to fully embrace social media. There is no denying the impact that social media has on our personal and professional lives and in the world of business, those who ignore social media or minimize its marketing power are doomed to fail. Social networks provide users with immediate access to information, and offer tremendous networking opportunities. Recommendations forwarded by a friend or co-worker carry weight, and staffing firms must sit up and take notice of this powerful medium. If you are ready to design a social media marketing strategy, take a look at the following recommendations.
Get the Lay of the Land
Before jumping into the arena, you must familiarize yourself with the various social media sites and apps. Conduct market research in order to determine which outlets are frequented by your target audience, and create profiles for your staffing firm. Completely fill out all of the required information and ensure that the contact information is accurate and easy to locate. Tie in your company logo and branding message to communicate a feeling of continuity between your website and social media platforms. Which sites are your competitors using? Are there any apps that are currently underutilized by your competition? If so, embrace the opportunity to establish your staffing firm as an influencer on that platform.
Get Goal Oriented
Now that you have familiarized yourself with social media and your profiles are set up, it’s time to set some goals for your social media marketing strategy. What do you hope to accomplish, and over what period of time? Are you looking to build your client audience, your candidate audience, or both? Do you have a desired number of new leads that you are looking to generate? Are you hoping to build your audience in order to announce a new office location or service you are planning to offer? Be sure to carefully track your baseline numbers, and don’t forget to reward your team when goals are achieved.
Get Your Audience
Is anybody out there? Without an audience, your social media marketing strategy is destined to fail, so take the time to build up a pool of interested clients and candidates. Ask your team to follow your company profiles as well as share your posts with their networks. Encourage new likes and follows by incorporating a social giving campaign into your social media marketing strategy. Be responsive to your followers by monitoring posts on your social media accounts and responding to concerns or comments in real-time. Immediate feedback is an essential part of ensuring that your audience remains engaged.
Get Your SEO in Order
Conduct market research and consult keyword glossaries in order to develop a list of words and phrases that are relevant to your target audience. Keyword optimized content is a huge part of your social media marketing strategy, and linking back to that original content is going to pay off with SEO dividends. Responsive sites earn higher rankings from search engines such as Google and Bing, so before you put your social media marketing strategy into action ensure that your site is built on a solid foundation. Build your company’s website with mobile in mind, and don’t be short-sighted when it comes to the expense of responsive web design (RWD). Once you begin posting and linking back to your website, the rewards are going to outweigh the work needed to bring your site into a mobile friendly format.
Get Analytical
Now that you have built up your audience and are actively participating in conversations, you need to remember to track your numbers in order to measure them against your proposed goals. Programs such as Google Analytics help to measure your incoming website traffic and produce social media reports that summarize which pages and social links are leading to increased engagement. Once you have determined which social media posts have been the most effective, you are able to better adjust your efforts and plan for future campaigns. Tailor your content and the time of day that you want to post to your social media accounts in order to achieve the most favorable results.
Key Takeaways to Getting Ready to Design a Social Media Strategy:
- Get familiar with the social media arena and determine which sites you are going to target
- Establish goals for your campaign
- Build up your target audience and engage them on a daily basis
- Keep SEO in mind when enacting your social media marketing strategy
- Track your numbers in order to measure them against your proposed goals
About S.J.Hemley Marketing
S.J.Hemley Marketing is a marketing and sales consulting firm focused on driving tangible results for professional services firms. Brand matters, but not without ROI. With over 20 years of sales and marketing experience within staffing and recruiting, we have helped to drive successful branding, sales training, lead generation activities as well as defining marketing strategy for top organizations.