Quick Social Media Marketing Checklist: A Comprehensive Guide to Key Terms, Goals, and Mistakes to Avoid
Social Media
Social media often refers to social networking platforms which organize the sharing of ideas and communication. These platforms focus on building Internet-based social communities.
Users sometimes access social media via desktop computers, though most activity today happens on mobile devices (e.g., smart phones and tablets). As more users interact with a social media network, the platform grows and becomes more powerful. Using social media users and brands create, share, and participate in highly relevant discussions.
Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing can be an effective strategy for businesses of all sizes to reach prospects and existing customers. Your customers are likely already in touch with brands through social media. If you are not interacting to your audience through platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, there is a lot you are missing out on! Great marketing tactics on social media can bring additional benefits to your business, including building loyal followers and generating more revenue.
One definition for Social Media Marketing is:
Social Media Marketing is the method of creating content that you tailor for each individual social media platform to drive user engagement.
Important Social Media Terms
1. Content: Content refers to anything that you post. It can be a Facebook status update, a picture on Instagram, a tweet, or a pin on Pinterest.
Content usually relates to information that connects with an audience. It is usually in text or visual form, with the goal of conveying an idea to your audience. Content can be delivered through different media such as internet, cinema, television, radio, Smartphone’s, audio CDs, books, e-books, magazines, and live events, live speeches, conferences, and stage performances.
2. Hashtags: By now, there are many ways users can classify posts on most social media channels. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest all use hashtags to describe the subject of your content or associate it with current trends.
They make it easy for users to discover and share your content.
A hashtag can describe information on social networks like Twitter and different social services. They allow users to use dynamic, user-generated tags that make it easy for others to find information on a selected topic. Users create hashtags by inserting the hash (#) symbol before a word or phrase.
For example, on Instagram, the hashtag #bluesky permits users to find all posts that are labeled using that hashtag.
3. Shares: Shares are the currency of the social media world. To many companies, they are all that matters on social media.
You can keep improving your reach, impressions, and click-through rates. However, these metrics do not tell you whether individuals are spreading your information to others.
When individuals engage and interact with your content, that’s great. But, if they share it with others, that’s even better.
A great tool to track shares and the overall impact of content is BuzzSumo.
4. Engagement: Engagement is general term that relates to how effective your content is. An engagement can be a like, suggestion, comment, or share.
All of these are relevant metrics. However as mentioned before, shares are the most important.
Engagement on social media implies that customers and stakeholders are active participants instead of just passive viewers.
How Social Media Marketing Can Help you Achieve Your Marketing Goals
Social Media Marketing can assist with achieving a range of goals, including:
- Increasing website traffic
- Generating conversions
- Raising brand awareness
- Creating a brand identity and positive brand association
- Improving communication and interaction with key audiences
The bigger and more engaged your audience is on social media, the easier it will be for you to achieve each marketing goal on your list!
Social Media Marketing Checklist
- Social Media Content Planning —Getting started with social media marketing is the first step. Consider keyword and competitive analysis to assist in brainstorming content ideas that excite your audience. What are competitors in your industry doing to drive engagement on social media?
- Share Great Social Content —Content reigns supreme. Ensure you post often and offer valuable information that your potential customers find useful and attention-grabbing. The content that you share on social media can include pictures, videos, infographics, how-to guides and other relevant information.
- Use A Consistent Brand Image —Social media marketing permits your business to project your brand across a variety of various social media platforms. Whereas every platform has its distinctive community, your business’s core identity, whether it’s a friendly, fun, or trustworthy, should be consistent.
- Social Media for Content Promotion — Social media marketing is an excellent channel for sharing your best website and blog content with readers. Once you build a loyal following, you will be able to post all your new content to keep your audience up to date. Plus, relevant blog content can assist you in gaining additional followers. It isn’t surprising that content marketing and social media marketing benefit one another.
- Sharing Curated Links — Using social media for marketing may be a way to leverage your own content to achieve followers, fans, and customers. It also offers a chance to link to outside articles. Your audience may enjoy engaging with different sources of relevant information. Curating and linking to outside sources builds trust, and you may even get more likes and shares in return.
- Tracking Competitors — It’s necessary to key an eye on your competitors. They may offer valuable information for keyword analysis as well as social media insights. If your competitors are using a certain social channel or technique that appears to be working for them, considering trying similar tactics. Just do them even better!
- Measuring Success with Analytics — You can’t verify the success of your social media marketing without proper data. Google Analytics is a good social media marketing metrics tool that may assist you in measuring the effectiveness of your marketing techniques. Creating UTM tags for your social campaigns can help you to properly monitor their performance. And be certain to use the analytics tools offered in every social media platform for even more additional insights (e.g. Facebook Analytics). This can help you to determine which content is performs best for your audience.
- Social Media Crisis Management — Things may not always go smoothly on social media. It is best to create a playbook in place, so your team knows how to handle a potential tricky situation.
Social Media Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
1. Failing to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy!
Every social media marketing strategy needs:
- Goals
- A target audience
- Tactics
- Time investment
- A Committed Team
2. Your Target Audience:
Your target audience must be relevant so that they can one day become your customers. If you target everyone, then you will be focusing your time and energy engaging with the wrong people.
3. Dealing with Negative Feedback
Types of Negative Feedback:
- Criticism is feedback based on individuals ‘opinions regarding your products and services. Criticism might escalate if neglected or not addressed quickly. Examine the problem and let individuals understand that you just are looking into it. A way to deal with criticism is to create a feedback channel to collect users’ opinions.
- Crisis hits once somebody is irritated and decides to take things to the next level. It’s typically a result of your earlier neglect. First, make certain that there is an issue and it’s not somebody attempting to personally harm you or your business. If you made a mistake, show regret and apologize for what happened. Next, let individuals understand what you are aiming to do improve things. Provides a timeline and specify goals you’re aiming to work towards.
4. Promoting yourself too much:
Don’t promote yourself a lot as users are quick to differentiate between any two products.Let your products speak for themselves.
5. Spamming:
Over promotion can lead to the spamming of your website. Avoid spamming and promote your content in genuine way.
6. Too Little Interaction:
Stay in touch with your customers or target audience. Otherwise, they may leave to other companies in the absence of proper interaction.
7. No Real Followers:
There are many ways to increase the followers of your account. However, fake followers don’t contribute business revenue. Moreover, building fake followers can be waste of money and time. So, avoid buying fake followers as a best practice.
Best Social Media Platforms for Marketing in 2019
- Google+
- Youtube
Conclusion
It is necessary to learn from your content promotion mistakes. Many of today’s social media platforms value quality content and a positive user experience. Continue learning to stay top of your marketing game and get a marketing consultant to help you out. Eventually, you will build out your name and brand in the social media world.
Martin Ochwat
Martin Ochwat is a digital marketing and eCommerce expert. He has managed over $100M in Facebook ad spend. Martin is currently working on D2C brand Wellow and digital insurance agency Dundas Life .
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Hey Martin, Thanks for the guide. I was quite looking for some terms to know in social media. Also, reasons to know why i should add social media in my marketing strategies.