It is 2020 and every business, irrespective of its scale of operations, is getting aboard the digital train. Everyone wants a slice of the internet and its marketing services because of its huge and unexplored potential.
You may think that using the internet and its services as a tool for marketing is easy and can be done by anyone and anywhere but you cannot be more wrong. Using the internet, especially its social aspect as a tool to market your product and service is a strategic process. You need to be careful when coming up with a strategy as many marketers and business owners are finding it difficult to market their business, products, and services on a variety of social media platforms with little to no returns for their inputs.
Every platform on social media has its own sets of unique features and benefits making them attractive. But, not all platforms are right for your next social media campaign. Engaging with your audience on different platforms may not give you the results you are looking for. Instead, be strategic and devote your time in selecting the right platform that can help you maximize the results with minimal efforts.
Selecting the right platform for your next social media campaign is a strategic process and here are few steps to find out which platform will do great for your next Social Media Marketing Campaign:
Understanding each platform
The first and foremost step in your plan to use social media as a marketing tool is to understand how major social media platforms work. You need to understand all the different aspects of each and every platform out there. You need to study how each platform works, what kind of content is consumed more on their site.
Apart from this, you also need to study how each one is different from another in terms of its offering and how does the audience on the platform interacts with them. You also need to keep in mind the demographic of your audience when getting to know more about each platform. You need to figure out which platform and what kind of content is majorly consumed in the region you intend to run the campaign.
Define your target audience and your niche
The goal of social media marketing is reaching your customers where they spend most of their time i.e. the internet. But in order to have a successful and impactful campaign, you need to understand your audience. You need to define your audience and find your niche. When defining the target audience, you need to answer the following questions
- Who is your target audience?
- Which platform do they spend most of their time and what time of the day are they most active?
- How do they interact with the platform and the content on the platform?
Apart from answering the above questions, you also need to keep in mind the key demographics such as gender, age, and location. Answering the above questions and understanding their demographic will help better understand your target audience and their behavior.
Define your goals and objectives
The next stage in the process of selecting the right platform is, to define your own goals and objectives. You need to answer the question of why you are doing what you are doing. Once you have defined your goal and laid down your objectives, it becomes easy for you as a marketer and a business person to determine the right platform.
Instead of defining your goals in terms of numbers, define them in the form of a purpose by answering the following question-
What is your motive behind this campaign?
- Do you want to increase the number of followings and increase the traffic on your website
- Do you want to build a platform for solving the problems of your customers
- Do you want to create a new customer forum
After you have defined your goals and laid down your objectives, you will be a step closer to finding the right platform for your campaign as you have now found one more missing piece of the puzzle.
Identify your skills and resources
The third step in the process is to identify your own skills and resources. Compare them with the plans you have and the objectives you have laid down for your campaign. Now analyze whether you have enough resources and skills to achieve your goals.
You also need to check if you have all the relevant skills and resources that are required by different social platforms. As you know, every platform is different from one another and has a unique way in which it interacts with the audience. Similarly, every social media platform requires different skills to interact with them. Compare your skills and evaluate them, once you are done you will have more clarity on which platform can work well for you.
Take inspiration
There is no harm in taking inspiration from others, have a look at things done by others, especially your competition. See what they are doing, what they have done right among other things. See how they are interacting with your target audience; see how they are performing on different social networks, see how they are interacting with each platform.
When you take inspiration from someone else’s work, when you have a look at the things your competition is doing, you get an idea of things that work well and things that don’t. This not only helps you save resources and time by skipping things that did do well with your audience but also provides you with a readymade ‘Dos and Don’ts’ list. Taking inspiration from someone else and understanding the market landscape will help you create better and more effective strategies, approach the right influencers and brand ambassadors.
Figure out your content
The next and probably, the most important step in the process is deciding on the kind of content you would like to produce and distribute to your target audience. Content on social media comes in many forms- Blogs, Videos, Songs, Podcasts, Images, Memes and many more.
As a representative of the brand, it is your job to finalize the content that you would like to make. The medium in which the content is produced plays the most vital role in deciding the platform. For example, if you decide to create content in the form of text then Blogging sites like WordPress, Quora and Reddit are your go-to medium, while, if you decide to make content in video form, platforms like YouTube and Tik-Tok are your best and most efficient method.
Finalizing the form of content also helps you to properly analyze your skills and resources, allowing you to make the necessary adjustments accordingly.
The final step
The final step in the process of selecting the right platform for your next Social Media Campaign is to align all your findings and research, compare all the possible and available options and finally, select the best available option and implement it!
By carefully understanding the above-mentioned tips and tricks, you can implement a fully optimized Social Media Marketing strategy. Follow Creative Monk on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more such insights on social media marketing.
