Reading Time: 2 minutes

Considering the fact that of all the online adults, 71% use Facebook and over half use at least two social media sites (Pew Research), it is a no-brainer that such sites are excellent channels for small business marketing.

Here are some fundamental principles and considerations for building a social media campaign to help your business grow:

  • Define Measurable Goals: Figure out the purpose of your social media campaign. Based on that, define goals that will help you to measure the effectiveness of your approach. Analyze your current position and set a goal for where you want to be, say, six months down the line. For instance, you may want to increasing traffic to your website by 50%.
  • Understand Your Target Audience: Once you set your goals, identify the group of social media users that will help you achieve these goals. Make a list of your industry’s influencers who have the most impact on that group. Social media also enables you to engage directly with your desired audience. Find out the various sites that your audience use and the time when they are most active on the sites.
  • Use Your USP: Your unique selling proposition (USP) lets your audience know what differentiates you from your competitors. Ensure that your USP is visible on all the social media platforms that you use.
  • Be Active: An effective social media campaign will require you to be active on social media and to share relevant content with your audience on a regular basis. You can use a mixture of original content, curated content, promotions, and offers to keep you audience engaged. Join in on conversations and reply to your followers’ posts. You can also make use of automation tools to help you save time and better utilize your resources.
  • Make Effective Use of Social Media Sites for Marketing: Sharing relevant content, posting at the right times, and reaching out to the influencers you identified earlier are all important to implement your marketing strategy. All of this ties in with understanding your audience. In addition, social media platforms allow you to run ad campaigns, which you can use to promote your products to an audience of your choice.
  • Keep Track of Your Campaign: Use analytic tools (either those built-in to the social media platforms or external ones) to keep track of how your campaign is performing. You can determine which of your posts generate the most engagement and the efficacy of your ads. If aspects of your campaign aren’t going the way you want them to, don’t let things be, but implement a different approach based on what’s working.

The above basics will help you start out right. For more specific tips on Facebook and Twitter marketing – take a look at: A Quick Guide To Twitter Marketing, Top 10 Facebook Marketing Tips, and 10 Facebook Business Page Tips . These short guides will help you to put your Facebook and Twitter campaigns on the right track.


.

Image Credit: Sean MacEntee via flickr


Save time managing your social media accounts

Are you still managing your social media accounts directly from Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn? Make your life easier by managing all your social media in one place, schedule posts, repeat posts, curate content and more. Try DrumUp now, it's free, forever.