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1.)    Create a social media marketing campaign plan

To successfully market using social media you must plan everything you post, share and follow, otherwise you will get lost. In marketing everything must be planned out and organized. Decide what you want your content to be (based off of your buyer personas), what you want to get across, when the best time is to share it, and how many posts are needed daily on each platform. Organize your posts by topic and when you’ll post them. Base the content you share on what is most relevant at that time to your buyer personas. If you create a successful plan with everything being shared at all the right times, your brand will begin to attract a following, and, most likely, get more social shares. Having a plan for social media posts, rather than just posting whenever you think it’s needed, will create   consistency in your social media presence. Everything has to be researched based, and not from an opinion. Do some researching on when the best times to post are, and how many posts a day are needed. Without a plan you will find yourself in chaos and guessing what to do next. 

2.)    Utilize the right platforms

There are numerous social media platforms in use today with the most popular being, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google +. All of these are great outlets for communication, but that doesn’t mean all of them will benefit your business. You need to be present on the platforms that your buyers use, and what makes most sense to your business. How to decide which platform is best for you? Well, you have to look at your business, and evaluate what you want social media to do for you. For example LinkedIn is predominately for B2B marketing, whereas Instagram is B2C marketing. Ask yourself what type of industry are you? If you’re visual based than Instagram will work wonders for you, but if you are in financing, you might want to get yourself on LinkedIn rather than Instagram. It all depends what you do and how you want to social media to benefit you. Remember it is a tool for communication and keeping people updated.

3.)    Generate relevant content

The content posted on social media is key. You must research and understand your buyer personas; because you cannot just post whatever you think is best. It’s not just informing everyone about your product or service, how where they are in their buyers journey and how you can help them. You need to know what your customers/prospects are interested in, and use that to create great content for them. It’s about being found on social media and having solid content to gain followers, friends, and social sharing. No one is going to pay any attention to crummy content with no purpose. To get popular on social media you have to create trends that people will want to be a part of. For example, Jimmy Kimmel launched a campaign on exposing inconsiderate public behavior #FingerOfShame. Whenever you saw someone doing something in public they shouldn’t, you were to snap a photo and tweet it to jimmy with the hash tag #FingerOfShame. This spread like wildfire, and is a great example of a well thought out social media strategy, because it really got people tweeting and looking at his page. He is a comedian talk show host and used comedy for his social media movement.  Remember who you’re targeted, what they want to see, and then give them the content they “demand”. Research common questions your buyer persona is asking and provide an answer, provide content that is of interest to your target market, not content that will bore them.

4.)    Use links

One goal of using social media is trying to gain leads and or customers on your actual website. We use social media to reach people how they prefer, where they spend their time, and to gain a loyal brand following. It is also a great way to spread brand awareness. With that in mind, if you use internal and external links on your social media posts, that will drive traffic to your website. "In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages." In addition to generating traffic it will also help your website become considered a reliable one. It’s a complex process, but a highly beneficial one. The more places or links that lead back to your website, the more opportunity is created to generate more web traffic.

 5.)    Track all data

Like all things marketing related you must observe and analyze social media data. Be on the lookout for trends and be aware of what your competitors are posting. You should always be tracking your own progress to extrapolate what is working and what is not. Find answers in your data, because your existing customer’s habits can allot you with valuable insight.

 To summarize my quick tips, initially make a plan for direction, discover whom you want as your social media followers, utilize the correct platforms according to your business, generate meaningful content to draw people in, start link building, and track your progress. These steps will help guide you through social media marketing and to a better understanding of a strong social presence.