Asking yourself the following questions is a good start and can help you figure out the main components of your approach:
Why are you creating a social media strategy in the first place?
Considering your reasons is the first step. Are you looking to increase sales or boost awareness in a new product/venture? Maybe you want to build a community of new or existing customers, or perhaps offer a venue for more interactive and real-time feedback.
How do you intend your branding message to come through?
It would be foolhardy to post without keeping your brand’s message in mind. How is it that you want to be seen? You should know your defining point and decide in advance how you will make it shine in the eyes of your future fans/followers.
Do you know how your target group uses social media?
This is an often overlooked aspect of developing a SSM plan of action and, as such, it should be on your mind. Think about the demographics of your chosen group. Younger internet users are more likely to use features like text or video, while those who are older often take part in forums. A good tool for assessing this is the Forrester Social Technographics Ladder.
Once you have these questions answered, you will better understand your criteria and get some ideas for executing a strategy to promote your free website. Then, you have to decide which social media channels would work best with those criteria toward meeting your goals. After all, not all social media sites are created equal and you’ll want to implement a few for the best results. Following is a table that goes into various Web 2.0 types and the benefits of each.
The next thing you should be considering is the content you place on your profiles. You want to post things that are relevant to your website, engaging to readers and include links pointing to your website. Keep in mind, also, that you will need to post with regular frequency to maintain search engine ranking. This can be as often as you like as long as it’s regular. If you are not available to take care of this, consider outsourcing the work to someone who is.
When you create your own website on Wix, you can promote your social media sites by adding the available icons on your website and pointing them to each specific profile. This way, your website and Web 2.0 properties are linked together many times over, giving search engines additional opportunities to index your sites and boost your page rank.
After your profiles are up and your strategy is being implemented, you cannot simply rest on your laurels. You have to monitor your campaign as you would any other marketing effort to ensure its success. Tracking click-throughs, sign-ups and sales are good but you have to use more than one measuring metric to know things like where your visitors are coming from, what pages they stay on and which ones they leave quickly (Google Analytics is a great tool). This will help you understand which methods are working and which ones you’ll need to adjust.
Any good marketing effort is flexible and on-going, and its success is dependent on making a good plan…what’s yours?
