Ever since social media took over the internet, to say many were thrilled would be an understatement. It opened many opportunities for individuals, groups and even businesses. Many use social media to get in touch with family and friends, connect with new people, stay updated with trending topics and current events, share photos, videos, opinions, and contents, even to just spare time and for entertainment.

For entrepreneurs, it became an excellent platform to promote and grow their business. With billions all over the world using the different social media sites every single day, these became one of the go-to sites for companies who wish to succeed. According to statistics,  the number of active social media users will reach a staggering 3.02 million users. This is the very reason why owners of big and small companies, as well as digital marketers, need to include social media in their digital marketing campaigns.

However, basic social media know-how is not enough to succeed in your business venture. Yes, anyone can create their pages in the different social media platforms, but not everyone can grow their followers, gather enough engagements and make conversions. What you need is a concrete social media marketing strategy, and we’ve picked ten of the best ways for you to formulate one like a pro.

First, Determine Your Short-term and Long-term Goals

The first step is to know what your objectives are and creating short-term and long-term goals. Generic goals won’t do as you need to be as specific as possible to make betters plans to achieve ultimate results. It would be best to keep the SMART principle in mind when determining your goals.

Know Your Customer

Next, you need to know who your customers are, what they want, what they need, how they currently behave, and what social media sites they are using. Be as specific as possible when naming your target audiences like their demographics, their age bracket, location, and the like.

Know Your Competitors

Know who your competitors are, where their location is, what social media sites they are using and study their tactics. This will give you pertinent data as to what you can do get ahead of your rivals.

Create Social Media Pages

Now that you know where your target audience and competitors are, it’s time to create pages in those networks. But, before you go on creating accounts, make sure to take one step at a time. You don’t need to create a page for your business on every single social media sites. Start with the ones you know and usually use like Facebook and Instagram. This way, you’ll already have an idea on how it works and not be overwhelmed with a large number of pages you need to manage all at once.

Make Due and Diligent Research

Social media marketing trends vary and changes often, so make sure to make due analysis, see what you can include in your marketing campaign, see what competitors are recurrently doing and if their efforts are paying off. In short, analytics and the latest trends will matter once you start your social media marketing campaigns.

Be Creative when Creating Contents You’ll be Posting on Social Media

Creative, original and engaging contents are what you need to publish and share in your social media pages to attract followers and get better engagements. Make sure each post is useful, high-quality, well-written and is something that your target audiences will want to find on their newsfeed.

Align Social Media Marketing Efforts with Your Content Marketing

To get the best results out of your social media marketing efforts, one needs to ensure to make it work with your content marketing strategies. Make sure to use a tone that your target audiences will find easy to understand, the posts you will write are useful and engaging, your posts and websites are optimized and to respond to comments and feedbacks accordingly.

Optimize Contents

Just because you managed to publish great-quality contents, your job is as good as done. This is what rookies in the field of SMM usually do. However, a good digital marketer knows that optimizing your content for search and sharing is how you can win in this type of digital marketing. Make use of visuals like images, graphics or even videos, and be sure your posts are easily shareable. Lastly, don’t forget to engage with your audiences to build trust, credibility and good relations.

Drive Traffic to Your Landing Page

The number of followers and engagements are not the only things that will let you know if your marketing efforts are paying off, but the amount of traffic you get from social media to your website and how much conversions you make. So, make sure to link your posts and shares on Facebook, for example, include links that will lead your target audiences to your landing page. This way, you create and drive traffic to your web and increase your chances of converting site visits into revenues.

Take Advantage of Social Media Marketing Tools

There are tons of tools available that can help you with your social media marketing efforts. For example, you already have lots of posts you plan sharing to your social pages. You can use tools that let you automate and schedule posts to save time and energy. To make better contents or see how your campaigns are doing, you can use tools that can help you find in-demand keywords, trending topics and one that lets you check your analytics. Some tools are free, some needs payment to enjoy the full features. You can find one that will enable you to make the most out of your SMM efforts dream a reality depending on your budget and marketing needs.

These are ten of the best ways that every digital marketer needs to keep in mind to create social media marketing strategies that actually work. Remember that in SMM, the number of likes and followers may look rewarding, but the determining factors for your success are the number of engagements and convertibles you get from your marketing efforts.