Social media has evolved tremendously in recent decades. Social media in 2020 has not only become the centre for news but is also a symbol of brand trustworthiness for several hundreds of customers. Marketing on social media is the present and the future.

As brands adapt to the fast-paced digitization, they integrate digital channels of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and Tiktok in their digital marketing mix.

This guide is to help you learn about how to build a successful social media presence and how to disrupt your competition with an innovative social media marketing strategy for 2021

1. Know your target audience

First, you need to know about your target audience. Without knowing who to market to, you can’t proceed any further. Identifying a target audience for your specific brand, even though it seems hard; it’s no longer time-consuming with the social analytics tools.

You can easily extract knowledge on demographics for each social media platform and track clusters of prospects who you consider to be most interested in your brand. You may want to inquire about the audience on all socials.

First, Facebook and Youtube are considered ideal for ads on almost everything. They can induce higher conversions. Second, if you’re a consultancy firm, you may want to tap your prospects on Linkedin first. You may, however, use other platforms later.

It lets you connect with professionals and is ideal for inducing engagement with industry-related content. Third, if you’re a fashion brand, you may want to focus your strategy specifically on Instagram since its audience comprises the younger generation of customers.

2. Determine Your Metrics For Social Media Performance

Whatever you’ve planned to achieve may not bear fruition with your efforts if you don’t keep track of your social media performance. Engaging users with creative and interactive content is essential, but it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t know how effective the marketing is.

Plus, it would help if you were especially concerned about your performance metrics on social platforms. If you’re not, sadly, you’re risking getting outplayed by your competitors. Social media is the present and future for marketers. So, it would help if you incorporated the following metrics in your social media marketing strategy.

Hashtag spread

Hashtags are excellent tools for creating hype for your product. Whatever hashtags you use, it may be worth knowing which hashtags have helped you generate the most user interaction with the brand. It’s helpful as it could guide you better for future tactics.

Reach

If you’re counting on organic reach, you may want to know how many new faces have come across your brand. It’s essential to know the size of your space since it strongly impacts conversions. So, you must track your reach.

Engagement

This includes comments, likes, and shares. Engagement is all about voluntary interaction with the content. This helps you to determine how your audience perceives your brand. High engagement may indicate a healthy level of interest in the brand.

Clicks

You may use a pay-per-click tactic since it’s cost-effective and gives you a prompt idea of what incites your users to click on the content. Hence, tracking clicks is essential.

Likes

Likes are important to track since the more followers you have, the higher potential you have to sneak into their stories and feeds. Plus, your like count also has the potential to brand an image for a new audience and help you attract more leads and converts.

Know your audience’s sentiment

Another fantastic metric that has become highly popular among marketers on social media is sentiment. You may want to know how people perceive your brand and what they talk about it.

3. Research Your Competitors

A social media page that is creatively designed may do fine. But, how about if it’s not up to the standards set by your competitors?. This is where we necessitate some research on your competitor’s move before you strategize to give an edge to them.

Whatever you’re selling, you may want to enter the keywords in the search engine. Regardless of organic or paid ads, ignore the ads from the top sellers such as Amazon and Walmart. Point out other brands that appear on top.

Visit their social media channels and have a careful look at the content. How do they engage? What kind of orientation do they have towards customers? What Kind of content is used to induce interaction?

4. Set up Your Social Media Goals

A strategy is just a word without clearly set goals. Here are some common goals you could consider to develop a master strategy to build your social media.

Reach out to a greater audience

Suppose you can’t attract a large pool of audience with an organic reach, no problem. You may try paid ads and try to tap as many potential customers as possible.

Plus, it is pertinent that you do not underestimate the potential of keywords. Keywords, if intelligently used, could help you attain a better organic reach.

Make people aware of your brand.

The objective of marketing is not mere advertising. In fact, with the help of powerful social media tips, you ought to present yourself as a reputable brand.

Remember, you need to deliver powerful messages to your prospects. Your target audience must start perceiving you as a brand.

Make sales

Promote when you feel the need to. Festivals and sales seasons are ideal to go with and may even skyrocket your revenues if a strategy is perfectly executed.

Offering constant discounts and creating hype can induce clicks, leading to more conversions. You may want to set a specific sales target for yourself.

Promote Hashtags and Increase audience engagement

Another goal you could set as a brand is to promote hashtags. Since hashtags drive user engagement, they are highly favorable for your marketing performance. Set a target to achieve several meetings or reach for a particular hashtag and work to accomplish the goal.

Grow your traffic to Social Media sites

You could do it by promoting with Facebook ads. They are cost-effective and have a strong potential for driving conversions. Growing traffic is also possible with the help of a website.

5. Integrate Videos in Your Content Strategy

How to make a social media strategy a disruptive one? Since the launch of TikTok, creating short-form video content that reaches a grand audience has become more comfortable.

Plus, you may do it correctly with Instagram Live as it excites your followers to connect and talk to you. These live video interactions can help you build a deep connection between you and the customers. It helps in pushing up your brand image.

Also, instead of talking about yourself, devote attention to the product you’re selling and its benefits. You may instruct its use with the help of videos on Facebook, Instagram, or even YouTube. It’s perfect for video content marketing.

6. Develop Engaging Social Media Content

Engaging is often seen as a daunting challenge. However, this is not the case. Attractive depends upon your willingness to interact with your followers.

Your customers on social media want to feel special when they interact with a brand. So, if you’re going to be their best brand, you may reach out to them.

Consider engaging with them right after posting. You must understand the gap between consumer expectations and common practices among marketers.

Most brands engage after 10 hours of posting. Unfortunately, this long time to respond is perceived as a lack of social media focus on the brand. Customers may even find your brand inactive across social platforms.

Alternatively, you may want to have a response time of 4 hours or even less as customers usually expect a brand to respond within 4 hours of their comment or inquiry.

7. Create Hype with an innovative Hashtag

Creating hype with a hashtag is not that difficult. All you need to do is attract action from your audience. A popular hashtag that asks your customers to share pictures of themselves in a particular outfit says superhero costumes would surely result in more engagement.

You may offer discounts for sharing photos and reposting the hashtags. This is a powerful tactic to attract attention and increase engagement. Plus, a creative tactic that draws action will indeed have the hype to help you convert in a better way.

8. Influencer Marketing

What are the Different Types of Influencers and how to Maximize micro Influencer Marketing
Influencers can fall into one of three categories: top, micro, or local influencers.

• Top Influencer
• Micro-Influencer
• Local Influencer

how to Maximize micro Influencer Marketing

Different Ways To Maximize Influencer Marketing, the list is presented below.

• Discover the right Influencer
• Foster a Relationship
• Long-Term Contracts
• Network With Influencer Agencies
• Select the Right Channels and Create Beneficial Content etc

Conclusion

In conclusion, creating a disruptive social media marketing strategy in 2020 is not as challenging as saying. Brands can consider elevating their image and raising awareness among the target group.

The use of long-form video content may also bear fruition in enhancing the engagement level of your marketing campaign. It would help if you had the shortest response time possible to keep your audience interested in you. Lastly, you may want to assess performance, identify obstacles, and make an effort to improve with teamwork.