Social Media For Businesses: The SMART Way

It’s time to start promoting your business using social media, but where to start? It’s normal to feel unsure when first launching a social media marketing campaign. It can seem like an overwhelming task that has no obvious starting point. Don’t worry, all you need is a plan.

We will discuss target audience, SMART goals, and things to keep in mind when creating a posting schedule among other topics. By the end, you will have the confidence and knowledge to start a social media marketing campaign on your own. Let’s get started!

Identifying the Target Audience 

The first step is establishing who your target audience is. This is the particular group that your company is trying to build an interactive relationship with. The target audience can be identified by analyzing various demographics, behavioral patterns, as well as a company’s current consumer/client base.

The target audience for social media marketing varies between companies and industries based on variables like the ones listed above. It is a good idea to figure out exactly who your ideal customer is, using as much specificity as possible. Think about age, gender, income levels, education, profession, geographic location, etc.

 In general, social media marketing should be intended for your target audience. Regardless of what form the content ends up taking, capturing the target audience’s attention should be your priority. Keep that in mind. This will come up again later on.

Identifying Campaign Marketing Goals

Before creating content for a social media marketing, companies must address what goals and objectives they have. Establishing these will provide some initial structure and organization. Knowing such objectives also helps to give a better sense for what the company ultimately hopes to achieve in social media marketing.

When setting goals, it is important to be clear and realistic. This ensures that your goals are attainable within a given time frame. It can be difficult to keep all these things in mind, but implementing the use of SMART goals will make setting an action plan a more fluid process.

Creating SMART Marketing Goals

The acronym, SMART, is a straightforward approach used in goal setting. It will increase the chances of achieving what your company wants in a social media marketing campaign by clarifying ideas, focusing efforts, and maintaining project productivity. Let’s break this down and work through each component of SMART.

S: Specific – Goals need to have a clear, well-defined objective. This is to get rid of any ambiguity or indecisiveness.

EX: I will learn how to use Adobe Illustrator to create a company logo that is visually appealing and includes the company slogan

M: Measurable – Goals that include quantifiable criteria make tracking your progress and staying on schedule easier. Being aware of what progress has been made can also improve project motivation.

EX: I am going to post twice a week on Instagram and I will do 1 20 minute live feed.. I aim to gain 10 followers on Instagram a week. 

A: Achievable – Goals must be realistic and reasonably achievable. Think of it as a reality check for your action plan. Goals must be well-defined in order to maintain their attainability but should also provide a challenge that stretches your abilities.

EX: I currently have 100 followers on Instagram. By next year, I want to have 200 Instagram followers. 

R: Relevant – It is of equal importance that goals carry significance for you personally, as well as for the company. Having an understanding as to why a goal is being set is key when establishing your motivation. Irrelevant goals set you up for failure because no one wants to work on something deemed as unimportant or insignificant.

EX: Increasing my number of followers will increase brand exposure, which can lead to more sales for the comapny

T: Time-bound – Goals must have a start and end date with progress checks happening in between. This creates a sense of urgency and therefore, increased productivity. Time-related parameters keep things on track so that everyday workplace tasks don’t end up taking priority over your long-term goals.

EX: I want to launch my social media marketing page this coming fall so I need to make sure that I finish my project tasks each day before doing everyday tasks

When done mindfully, incorporating these SMART goal criteria into your action plan will help tremendously in the facilitation of an effective social media marketing campaign for your company.

Choosing Platforms for Marketing Campaign

At first, it may seem like using as many social media platforms as possible to launch your project is the best way forward. In truth, certain social media platforms are more suitable for marketing than others.

According to an article done by Hevo INC. in December 2022, here are the 10 best social media marketing platforms:

1.  Facebook                                                             6. Pinterest

2.  Twitter                                                                 7. Reddit

3.   LinkedIn                                                             8. Snapchat

4.   Instagram                                                          9. Tumblr

5.   YouTube                                                            10. TikTok

Focus your efforts on finding platforms with values and content themes that are similarly aligned with your companies’. Always be thinking about your target audience. It will help with identifying which social media platforms will be most effective in terms of reaching your intended audience.

This is also a good opportunity to do some reference research using already posted content. This will provide a better grasp of how your campaign’s content might look like.

Research Other Social Media Campaigns in Your Industry

It’s more than likely that your company isn’t the first one in your industry to launch a social media marketing campaign. Instead of seeing this as a setback, think of it as an opportunity to build off the mistakes of others. Work smarter, not harder.

Rather than starting with the trial-and-error process of trying to create effective content yourself, work off of the foundation others have already laid out on social media. Start by identifying a couple different marketing accounts in your industry and use their content as a reference or template.

Determine what is being done to build a relationship with viewers. This is in terms of both the audience as a whole and with your specified target audience. What’s working? What isn’t working? Answers to these questions ultimately allow you to improve on the mistakes others have made on similar campaigns when creating content of your own.

Create a Posting Schedule

A social media posting schedule is an outline of upcoming content posts organized by time and date. It is very similar to the processes used for the T in SMART goals, a.k.a. Time-bound. When creating a social media posting schedule you should:

1. Conduct a social media audit – This is where you assess your social media presence and audience engagement in order to find out what’s working and what needs improvement.

2. Decide on what content will be posted and what social media platform to leverage – Be mindful of platform themes and values so that you can post content that is cohesive and makes sense in that medium.

3. Figure out what information will be logged on the posting schedule – It is important to keep track of information like which social media platform(s) will be used for a particular post, as well as any supporting links or hashtags associated with the content. Depending on the project and it’s goals this will vary and has no one size fits all kind of formatting

Staying Consistent with Content & Branding 

Brand consistency is key in any social media marketing campaign. It sends a signal to audiences that a company has a strong handling of their brand identity, which in turn boosts company credibility in the public eye.

“People need to see information about a business 7x before becoming a customer” 

This means that your company’s brand needs to be recognizable by audiences that come in contact with your content, regardless of the medium or formatting.

Branded content that carries significance for the audience helps build a connection to the brand itself. This is where your target audience comes in to play again. These people are who should be resonating with the content the most, giving the opportunity to create a client/customer relationship.

Conclusion

There is no one right way to launch a social media marketing campaign, but there are things you can do to make the process easier on yourself. Keeping your target audience in mind, maintaining consistency, and staying on schedule  are by far the most important steps when promoting a business on social media.

What matters most is making sure that every step of your action plan relates directly back to the target audience of a company. If you are successful in keeping this in mind, then the project should launch without a hitch. Good luck!