Social Media Agency Cyprus
An important part a business Internet Marketing strategy should be the company’ s Social Media Marketing. In this article we will focus on this type of digital marketing giving you some ideas on what you should know to build a professional business social media marketing plan.
Social Media Marketing
Running efficient marketing campaigns on different social media channels ( Facebook Pages, Twitter, Google +) can prove to be of great benefit for your business.
Whether your Goal is to drive potential customers to your Facebook page or website, gain more Facebook fans, build your email list and boost sales you need to carefully plan the right campaign for your business.
Build your Social Media audience
For a start, in order to be efficient in social media marketing for a specific channel ( i.e Facebook ) you need to have sufficient Fan or Follower base. The more fans you have you can expect more engagement on your posts which in turn can boost in a viral marketing way ( a friends tells to his friends and so on ) your social media marketing efficiency. Facebook page likes provide social proof and ongoing value! You want to drive the right people to like your page ( target niche relevant categories to your business) and to get as many people possible to like your page.
Considering positive and negative reinforcement in Facebook Marketing is very important. When you have money you struggle much to gain even little money ( negative reinforcement). When you have much money people trust you with more money easily and it is much easier to make more ( positive reinforcement). You need to place your company in the positive reinforcement realm where you have a large fan base which drives even more fans to follow you.
But how one can start if his Fan or Follower base is low; He can start by inviting his Facebook friends to like his page and when that is exhausted he can continue gaining fans either through paid advertising within the same channels ( i.e Facebook ads) or by creating contests that will attract much engagement from his existing fans and even help him broaden his fan base.
Social Media Contests
Consider the following different type of contests :
- sweepstakes content ( Users are required to leave their email in order to get a chance to win a prize (by random drawing)
- vote contest where people are encouraged to leave their personal opinion ( vote ) about your product or services. This helps them engage and interact with your business in a personal way. One example would be to let people vote for your next product or marketing campaign. That way you keep them thinking of your own brand and not just the price they may gain.
- Group Deals give people a chance to enter a limited time offer for your products and services.
In JCSL Ltd we can take over the social media marketing challenge of your business by creating your professional business page on social media channels ( i.e Facebook page or Google + Page ) and promoting it by use of advertising campaigns and contests.
Social Media Marketing Plan
So you need a plan, right ? Let us help you with some ideas.
1. Start by setting your goals.
What do you plan to achieve with your social media Marketing? Where does your business stand in social media today? Set an achievable, measurable and time framed goal on where you want your business to reach ( ie within six months from now)!
For Example:
"i want to grow my fan base by 5000 people and these have to be fans that are interested by my products and services"
"I would like to drive 1000 visitors / month to my website who are interested about an offer i plan to advertise”.
2. Choose your social media channels
Choose your social media channels and evaluate your competitors social media presence.
Cyprus social media marketing is basically restricted to Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin while Google Plus and Pinterest are also slowly rising. Decide on which social media channels you are going to focus and evaluate your competitors social media presence. Before you decide on the social media channels to use you need to study the behaviour of your customers in terms of social media. You may take a small sample of your existing customers and ask them which social media channels they use more. Try to focus on the social media channels that your potential customers use more.
For each social media channel outline your objective. For example with Facebook you can set as goal to attract fans and share company events promote products and announce new offers.
3. Create Professional looking pages
Make sure that your business pages for each social media channel are professionally created and administered in order to give your business a professional look.
Care and consideration has to be given in the proper dimensions for images used in business social media pages. For example, Page profile pictures, cover photos, app thumbnails, timeline photos all need to be resized and properly cropped before uploading to your Facebook page in order to ensure a professional look and feel of your business page. Also you can use different social media applications to add extra functionality to your social media page ( ie contact us form, Open in a frame an important page of your website e.t.c ). A custom url for your page is also a must to help your audience find you easily and aid seo optimisation.
Remove duplicated accounts as this gives out a messy picture of your company. For example for a business JCSL Ltd took over their social media administration there was a duplicate Facebook page that was not being used but was ranking better ( in Facebook search for the company’ s name) than the one that was currently in use. We had to delete the obsolete page and immediately the business Facebook page ranked first in Facebook search.
4. Create the right content
It is often quoted by internet marketing experts that Content is King. This is especially true when considering your social media marketing strategy.
Try to be genuinely interested to give content that provides useful information, products, offers to your audience. Do what works to get others people attention on Facebook by testing that which works to get your attention.
Your mindset when creating content is very important. Your mindset should not be ALL ABOUT YOU and ALL ABOUT getting sales and money from your customers. Your mindset should be to genuinely have a desire to help people with the information, products and offers you share.
It is important to include in your social media marketing plan your editorial calendar. Decide on the type of content you plan to use indicating each time the corresponding target audience , the frequency of your posts, the time of posting and divide that in your editorial calendar to the different page administrators.
Trough out building your marketing strategy plan you need to remind yourself of your goals ( see 1 above). Different types of content have different objectives.
For example:
- Content that aims to drive people to your business blog aims to show your expertise in your field of business and increase traffic from potential customers to your website.
- Content from external sources relevant to your niche ( i.e from leader brands in your industry) show that you keep up to date to the industry’ s advancements/ ideas .
- Content specific to your business or to your employees and your team shows your business culture encourages personal interactions in order to promote your business.
These are not but just some hints of some important parts that your social media marketing plan should include. You must always have in mind that your social media marketing plan should stay dynamic ( always changing and adapting to changes in social media culture which never stops changing).
Your ultimate objective should always be to find ways that will help you efficiently update ( cross-sell ) your existing social media fan base and at the same time attract new potential customers for your business.
Written by :
Prodromos Kikas
BEng, MSc -DIC
Call us now on 22-232482 and let us arrange a meeting with you to discuss your digital marketing strategy in general or your social media marketing plan.
