The widespread use of social media around the world has become so significant that it can no longer be ignored. 2014 statistics show that around 72% of all internet users are active on social media, with Americans spending about 16 minutes per hour on Facebook.

It comes as no surprise, therefore, that a lot of businesses, including those in Greenville, S.C., also engage social media to promote themselves. Having a Facebook or a Twitter account may be easy enough, but ensuring its success is another matter altogether. Business 2 Community contributor Pam Dyer lists some useful pointers on creating a successful social media marketing campaign.

Know Your Market

Among the pointers given by Ms. Dyer is to know your audience. Find out which social media accounts they are interested in, and create accounts on these platforms. You can then list down your KPI’s or key performance indicators, and with these information, “write a social media marketing playbook”:

The playbook should detail your KPIs, audience profiles, brand personas, campaign concepts, promotional events, contests, content themes, crisis management plan, etc. Make sure to tailor strategies that are unique to each of your social media channels.

Schedule Updates

In updating your accounts, you have to make sure that the content you add is relevant, informative, and is interesting to your audience.

Ms. Dyer then gives this advice on updating your social media accounts:

Set aside some time at the beginning of each week to prepare. Take 30-60 minutes to schedule tweets, Facebook posts, LinkedIn posts, Pinterest pins, and other social media content. Come up with some original ideas, links to your own content, and links to outside content that is useful or interesting to your audience.

Regular updates are essential in social media success, as they keep your audience engaged at all times. Understandably, you may not have the time to constantly do this, and dedicating a staff to social media tasks is often not a cost efficient option. A better solution would be to work with Greenville, SC online marketing experts, such as those in Spark Local Marketing, who can help you in identifying your market’s online habits, and create relevant content for them on a regular basis.

Analytics

Regular assessment of your social media marketing efforts is also important. If something is not working, you can develop new strategies that could turn the results around. Once again, this is something that is not easy to carry out, particularly for someone without sufficient experience or training on internet marketing. Reputable Greenville internet marketing firms can monitor the effectiveness of social media campaigns, and recommend and implement any changes that may be necessary.

(Source: 12 Essential Elements of a Social Media Marketing Strategy, Business 2 Community, October 19, 2014)