Content and Social Media Marketing for Small Business
2014 has ended and we are coming to the end of the first quarter of 2015. As we all should be well past the events of the holidays and have now settled into our regular work flow, let's take a look at the current year ahead, evaluate and plan for your social media and content marketing in a different way.
Have you made any social media resolutions for the year? Are you following through?
What worked in 2014?
Take a look at your content and social marketing efforts in 2014. This includes all the engagements and activities that involved your target audience on social media sites. Evaluate the goals that you had set against the results that were produced. To do this, ask yourself these 4 questions:
1. What were my goals for 2014?
Look back at the goals that you wanted to reach. What milestones did you want to accomplish last year? For example, gaining 2000 Twitter followers or bringing in 2 new clients. Big or small, looking at these goals are important in setting new ones. Your goals should reflect the direction you want to take your business in for 2015.
2. What actions did you take to accomplish your goals?
Social media marketing and content marketing are two very different concepts, which both have a combination of many different processes and factors to consider. Among the basics is creating engaging content and distributing it consistently across your social media channels. Evaluate the actions that you have taken. What worked? What didn’t work? What needs to be improved?
3. Did your actions speak to your audience?
As you look back on your goals from last year, always keep in mind the most important part of the equation - your audience. Good social media and content marketing plans can take time and are those that address your customer interests. Although not everyone in your audience will be your customers, your target audience must include them. Did the campaigns you launched speak to your customer's demographics, interests and online activities, did your audience find them, connect with you, follow you?
4. What has been accomplished?
Efforts always deserve a pat in the back but at the end of the day, it’s the results that matter. Every positive step that you have made, is a good indicator of what you should continue to do. And the steps that didn’t produce favourable results? They should teach you about what needs to be improved or what areas needs to be avoided altogether.
Setting Goals for the Rest of 2015
Are you planning to pursue publishing that e-Book? What about that contest that you’ve been itching to organise? There are many challenges that you can take on for 2015. Setting one big goal is important but it is also necessary that you set small, specific and quantifiable goals, that you can set a timeframe on and plan steps to making them a reality and hence start achieving those goals.
1. Set up a Content Calendar
If your business has been regularly posting valuable content, then you may have, in one way or another, already started using a content calendar. If you have not considered or seen one, there are free templates available online. PS we have a content calendar available in our subscriber list, its set to appear in about one months time, you can join below or get in touch with us and we'll get you one right away.
A content calendar will allow you to plan for the content that you want to deliver on specific dates and likely for key events during the year. With your content calendar set in place, you can clearly see how you can improve deadlines; and be more prepared for future content development planning.
A content calendar can also be used to streamline your writers’ and designers’ schedules. You can make this a useful tool of reference for your business and share this with other departments like HR, sales and even customer service. As a result, you get more heads to contribute to your social media marketing efforts.
2. Publish an e-Book
eBooks have the ability to inspire your target market. eBooks can afford you the exposure and strengthen the credibility of your business. Tap your best writers, and have a team come up with the best and most popular content. Focus on the topics that were able to create a positive impact on your relationship with your target market well..jpg)
3. Set up a contest
This is one of the best ways to attract more people to know more about your business. Contests help you initiate an active way to engage your audience. Generally contest are very well suited to facebook, though of course you can run your own internal contests on your website, a way to gain more targeted prospects to your business.
4. Grow your followers, likes, pins and clicks
There are several ways to do this, and we have previously posted on the best practices for setting up and growing followers on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Your followers need to be more than numbers, they need to be your peers in the industry, your influencers or your target audience. Be follow-worthy and the followers will surely come. Each channel does take considerable work and effort, if you're not going the paid advertising route, which most startup businesses are not, then devote the resources to the channel where your customers are most likely to be.
5. Explore a new social media channel that is suited to your business
The social media world for business is very dynamic. 5 years ago, there was no Instagram and Pinterest. Now, major companies have tapped into the potentials that these two platforms hold. New platforms naturally mean new adjustments and new strategies, and possibly a learning curve, but the rule of life remains true, nothing is permanent in this world except change. You have to be ready to embrace what’s new online because there is always something new coming. There are now a good number of social networks and online trends that could possibly impact your business in the next 3 to 5 years. You have to understand that what may be considered effective marketing today, may no longer work in the next few years or months. Remember Friendster and MySpace?Bonus extras - Short Videos on Vine or something else?
You may want to consider using short videos that potentially could go viral too. See what other businesses are doing on Vine. The GIFs on Tumblr are also getting a lot of attention. Put simply, explore.2015 is well underway, taking the hard stance at the end of the first quarter is always a good measure to see how those new years resolutions and your strategies are progressing. If you're not in it, then you've no chance of winning anything. Don't get caught up on making mistakes with your brand, every brand does, they learn from it and make a better effort next time around.
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About the Author
About Angelica Manlunas
Angelica lives off of coffee and pizza. She spends her time online tinkering on social media, watching short films and poetry slams. Her offline time is devoted to trips to the beach or spending lazy days indoors with a book in her hand. Also, she writes at least 1000 words every day. Email Angelica at angelica.manlunas@transeo.com.au and follow Angelica @ang_transeo.
