SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING FOR BUSINESSES

Almost as soon as social media hit the mainstream, marketers declared its potential as a lucrative sales channel. Advertisers lost control of the media years ago when the Internet gave all the target audiences the power to run their own message delivery systems. I’m not sure we had fully recovered from that peaceful revolution when another gigantic wave hit us, then another and another: Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, blogs, Yelp, Foursquare, and on and on. Yet, most Nigerian businesses are not taking maximum advantage of Social Media as a marketing tool.

Millions of Nigerians use the Social Media on daily basis and are connected for at least 15 hours everyday. This represents a huge marketing potential that Nigerian businesses can exploit for sales, marketing and management.

The whole Social Media thing can be very confusing which partly explains the problems some companies are experiencing with it.
Stop chasing your tail in social. Start your Social Media marketing (SMM) planning right by following these five easy steps.

SMM Step 1: Create Your Executive Overview Business Plan

Concisely spell out your business to realize why you need social:
• Your Business Mission and History
• Your Business or Revenue Model
• Descriptions of your Products & Services
• Details of Your Target Audience
• Review of Your Current Marketing Efforts

SMM Step 2: Define Your Specific Social Media Goals

It is impossible to reach and attain a goal without defining exactly what you want to achieve. Too many business owners let social metrics define their goals, such as “More Twitter Followers”, “More Fans on Facebook”, “More YouTube Views.”
As marketers, we all know that it is really about engagement that counts. But, what engagement are we talking about? Positive engagement? Volume of commenting on a controversial piece of content?

You need to go a step beyond to define specific, feasible, and (most importantly) reasonable SMM goals. Here are some specific SMM goals you might use after completing your business review:

• Validate a new product or service using social as a research platform.
• Develop buzz and interest around a new product.
• Engage users in social to generate relevant and targeted traffic to your site.
• Gain market share by leading customer/client service through social.
• Generate registrations to branded events through social.

SMM Step 3: Find Your SMM Voice

One of the keys to ensuring your success in social is to create and implement a voice that resonates with your specific target audience. For each audience type, break down and research age, income, location, and reasons for possibly buying your products/services.

SMM Step 4: Choosing Your Social Tools Appropriately

Choosing your social tools appropriately is an essential piece of your online communications plan, so choose wisely. Let’s do a short review of the leading social sites to assist you in your selection:
• Facebook:More than 955 million users (6.409,540 Nigerians). Majority between 18-25; 60 percent female. Best opportunity for community building with customers.
• Twitter:More than 555 million users. Majority between 26-34; 57 percent female. Best tool for interacting in real-time.
• Google Plus+:More than 170 million users. Majority between 26-34; 63 percent male. Platform for driving visibility around a brand.
• LinkedIn:More than 150 million users (886,183 Nigerians). Majority between 26-34, directly followed by 35-44. The number one B2B social networking tool.
• Pinterest: More than 12 Million Users. Majority between 26-44; 68 percent female. A viral platform for sharing stories via pictures.

SMM Step 5: Plan & Execute Content & Delivery

Now to the hard part – finding, creating, and delivering engaging social media content. Social media execution can be daunting, but with a proper plan it is doable and can drive real (marketing) results.

What you need to define:

• Your frequency of content delivery & response to social engagement.
• Your types and specific topics for content creation.
• Ways to increase audience engagement.
• Events that can drive social.
• Your social success metrics (number of followers, number of fans, volume of traffic back to site, number of retweets, etc.).

Summary

Social media marketing can be an excellent vehicle for developing online brand awareness, customer engagement, and audience growth. This requires a solid, measurable plan and a commitment to developing consistent and valuable content. In addition, it’s crucial for businesses that want to thrive in Nigeria to have clear understanding of why social can be useful for reaching business goals.

About Olakitan Wellington

I am a Social Media Marketing Strategist and Facebook Marketing Expert, a business coach, seminar resource person, published and serial entrepreneur. I help businesses to get extraordinary results from their marketing campaign thus ensuring steady increase in their incomes.