As noted last episode, attracting the right audience is critically important for businesses to maximize the use of social media for growing leads online. This is often the area where the biggest mistakes by businesses are made!
In today's "Part II" we do a quick recap and then go further on this topic to give you actionable tips to implement in your Attraction phase of the digital marketing funnel.
It's all about being strategic with your social marketing! Are you? Use this episode as a checklist to find out. Ready to dive in?
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Back to the key basics... As shown in the image below the Digital marketing funnel has 6 components:
We are focusing now on the "Attraction" component. Last week we talked about ways to get in front of the right audience which demands that you have a clear picture of who your ideal audience is, the "buyer persona". This is critical to know the demographics and key characteristics of your ideal business you need to reach such as:
Attraction content is the key. This is content that appears either on social media or on your website blog. Your blog is a foundational tool to produce resource, rich content that you can then share on social media.
Then things like Facebook Ads let's you target an ad to your idea audience persona so your message is reaching your exact target audience.
Let's dive in deeper now...
Consistently publishing high-quality content will help your site rank well on search engine result pages. It will also yield more content you can share on social media later on.
But how frequently should you post to achieve this consistency?
There’s no hard-and-fast rule, but for small to medium sized businesses, aim for at least one blog post with a minimum of 600 words per week as the best route. That’s about four posts a month. It’s enough to let Google and people know your site always has fresh content. If that is too much, aim for at least 2x a month!
But to develop a strong social media presence, you have to post more often that once a week!
If your workload permits, aim to release 1-2 posts per day on your key platforms. This can be done if you plan your content a few weeks to a month ahead, with all the titles, outlines, and schedules already laid out. This calendar will help manage your time, so you don't waste a lot of it trying to come up with a topic whenever you have to write a blog post.
Let’s go back to Permalatt. The company was able to grow their monthly website traffic by publishing informative articles and other materials on the website blog Resource Center. But their work didn’t end there because having great content on their site wasn’t enough. What they needed to do was draw visitors with the power of social media. They developed a routine which they still use today for social media posting.
Whenever Permalatt releases a new blog post, they share a link on social media. For each platform, they customize a post and share it multiple times. The key here is that Permalatt takes into consideration the different and unique ways the platforms work when designing and scheduling network posts.
For example, Twitter’s news feed algorithm still emphasizes recent tweets. To have higher visibility on the platform, you should frequently tweet to make sure you always have a fresh post. Make each tweet different even for the same blog post, so your timeline doesn’t look like a series of repeated messages. Also, don’t forget to add a catchy image so your tweets don't get overlooked. Use one of the photos from your blog post, which should have one to three images. Photos not only get more glances, but they optimize blog posts for social media as well.
As the biggest social media network, Facebook should be the top priority for most businesses. Make sure to use an image that displays well on the platform, e.g., 1200 x 628 pixels. Fortunately, the same size works fine for Twitter and LinkedIn. But for Instagram, a square image works best. For Pinterest, vertical images are ideal, much like what a typical infographic looks like. If you do want to make an infographic, use a graphic design app like Canva. You’ll be surprised at how such an app and others like it can make the task simple and easy.
Next, you need to have a plan. Here is an example that looks a lot like what Permalatt uses, except they don’t post on Instagram or Snapchat. Permalatt is aware their target audience isn’t heavy users of those platforms, so they don’t bother. Instead, the people they want to attract are on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Google+ is there as well, for SEO purposes.
It’s all about knowing where your target audience hangs out – from there you can figure out how often you should post and what approach you should take.
When you’re running several social media profiles, it can be hard to keep track of where traffic comes from. Use a unique Google Custom URL Parameters for each platform. It makes tracking on Google Analytics more convenient because everything is properly labeled. You’ll also easily learn which platform drives the most traffic.
If you’re using a social media scheduling tool like Hootsuite or SocialChamp, you’ll be happy to know you can get analytics from them. That’s one less burden off your shoulders.
So now we’re at the end of the lesson, it’s time to review your game plan. Is a monthly content strategy plan working for you? How does a content calendar help you organize your ideas?
What areas do you need to improve based on the sample social sharing plan? You won’t get the all the answers right the first time around, but in time, you’ll get the hang of it. It’s a trial-and-error process at the start, but you’ll make fewer mistakes as you learn the ropes.
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I’m an Indiana Hoosier native where basketball is the top sport. Every team heads to the locker room at halftime to evaluate the first half and create an updated plan for the second half. That plan includes adjustments based on reviewing what worked and what didn't. The “halftime” is a key review point where the game stops, the team pulls away to huddle in the locker room away from the fans, and they come out prepared and ready to succeed in the second half.
That’s what this podcast is all about, taking the time to pull away for a bit to evaluate, learn, and set some strategies for your business to succeed in the second half. Join me by subscribing and let me be your “business halftime” to help you find great success going forward!
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