The planning phase that precedes the execution of a task could be the most tedious of the whole process. That is just true of planning social media marketing promotional strategy. Abraham Lincoln’s quote will suffice here:

‘if I have six hours to chop down a tree, I will spend the first four hours sharpening the ax’.

The planning process is the most important processes involved in creating a social media marketing promotional strategy for executing any given project. Social media marketing can be quite tactical due to the instantaneous reach, and feedback advantage it possesses.  This obvious advantage makes it more demanding to create an effective strategy for marketing at this level.

Social Media Marketing is a form of marketing done via the internet that employs social networking websites as a marketing tool for generating leads. The aim of social media marketing is to create online content that users can share among their social network to help the firm increase its brand exposure and for a wider customer reach.

It is clear that the reach of social media for marketing is just as wide and unlimited as there are social media platforms and users on the internet. For the records, a Pew Research Center reports that “72% of all internet users are now active on social media”.

Now that we have taken the definition hurdle out of the way, let’s explore the steps!

How to Make Your Social Media Marketing Promotional Strategy ‘One of its Kind!

Defining your social media marketing promotional strategy funnels would give you perfect head start in your campaign. | CC:- OST

1. Highlight Your Objectives

This entails the aim, the expectations and the perceived lapses of the campaign. Your goal/objectives need to be as all-encompassing as possible. The chances of veering off course when the objectives of a campaign or marketing strategy are not well set are higher at the planning stage. That is why it is important to examine all points in developing the objectives.

You may want to hold a preliminary discussion with the brand you are designing the campaign for to understand their ideals. This will put you in a better position to carry the brand image along in developing the social media marketing strategy fit for them.

Also, the handling team should meet to brainstorm on the various channels available to carry out the campaign. This gives the marketing team and the client / brand a sync in thought and action. With this, you are well on the right track for creating that super-effective social media marketing promotional strategy.

You will need your objectives to be SMART i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed.

2. Develop The Message To Share

It is important that the message of the marketing strategy be stated and shown to the team – if you are working in a team. Developing the message aids a smooth passage through the process of creating the desired strategy.

This serves as a compass that guides your actions and measures your inactions through the whole process. Developing a message for your strategy gives you a template to run with.

Once you have created the message, you are as good as half-way through the whole process.

Here's a sample of processes your content would probably go through before getting the right attention it deserved on social media. | CC:- CPC Strategy

3. Prepare Your Targeted Audience

In this section, you are expected to carry out your segmentation and differentiation processes. You may want to refer to Hubspot’s tips on that. Once these have been done, you then have a sketch of who your targeted audience for the campaign is and what they do.

I cannot emphasize this enough. Preparing your target goes beyond just highlighting them. It covers the first move of getting acquainted with them.

That is one of the many benefits of using social media for marketing. You can get specific information about your targeted audience just by using a good analytic tool to track the traffic on the platform you want to use.

Take the initiative to approach your target and then conduct research on various fields relating to your target: demographics, psychological, racial, etc. The scope can be expanded or shrunk to suit your specifications.

Also Read: Understanding A/B Testing: How to Increase Sales and Gain More Consumers by Tweaking Your Campaign

4. Select The Media/Channel

The segmentation and differentiation process that you have done above would have availed you some vital details about your target audience. This should be able to guide you in the choice of media to reach your audience.

For one, there are campaigns that perform well on Twitter and Facebook. And there are some that are more effective on platforms like LinkedIn and Google Plus.

It is left to you as a good social media marketer to feel the rhythm and pulse of your targeted audience and know what platform they can best be met on.

Also Read: 3 Underused Social Media Marketing Platforms That ‘WORKS LIKE MAGIC’!

5. Create The Materials

This is where a good creative digital designer’s skill comes in handy. Infographics and designs to be used throughout the campaign need to be available or pre-scheduled. See Buffer’s post on tools to create images for social media.

This will help to create a reservoir of resources that can always be fetched from for use throughout the campaign. The importance of creating the materials beforehand is to allow you do a thorough-based research on the campaign. That is how you get to determine what you will need to run with.

Now, go and be the best at creating that super strategy for your brand’s social media marketing!

Contributed by: Tobi Adono from Big Field Digital