In today’s modern age of Internet and Social Media if there are still marketers who believe Social does not mean of much importance then they better check the stats.  More than 80% of Americans use Social media to communicate with each other. According to 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report 78% of marketers saw an increase in the website traffic by investing 6 hours a week in Social Media.

Even with all the statistics available for reference if you ask most marketers “How to link a Social Media Campaign with dollars and profit?” the answers coming are not that clear. For most of then the three challenges that they face with linking a Social Media Campaign to dollars are three things:

• The first thing is how Social Media will make a difference to their business or brand.
• How to measure the reach of a Social Media campaign once undertaken?
• And last how to link Social Media with ROI?

Well below is a three step way which will help organizations to develop an effective Social Media Strategy but also to answer the above questions.

1. Understanding and Listening to the Target Audience

The first step in Social Media is to understand the target audience and the best way to go about this is to listen to your audience as a brand. For a brand which has presence on Social Media there is lot of data available in terms of reviews, message boards, forums. It’s important that data which is relevant is used and from the correct channels. A brand which is a good listener will always get more from its customers not only in terms of reviews but also in terms of relationship with its customers. There are many ways brands can turn out be good listeners to name a few here are some commonly used methods by some of the most successful brands in Social Media.

• Asking customers about their biggest achievements
• Answering Questions on the most commonly received questions
• Having Services which the audience is most commonly looking for

 

2.      Analyze and Develop

 

Once you have understood and listened to your target audience the next step in line would be to use all the data from step and start putting it into use.  The data from step one can be easily used by brands to analyze the following things

• To identify who can be brand ambassadors for their brand are
• Who are the top influencers for the brand
• What type of content is most popular with the audience
• How many followers are there across the various Social networks for the brand

Along with analyzing the next step in having an effective Social Media plan would be to start developing an action plan for the content in picture and how to nurture the leads into the buying mode for the Social Media Marketing Campaign in picture. While developing an action plan towards the content its important to pay attention to very detail as this forms the foundation for the next step in picture for example

• What type of Content would be right?
• When to release the content and across which channels?
• What will be acceptable and what will be not?
• What would be the Call to action for the prospects?

 

3.      Respond and Monitor

Once you have understood your audience and analyzed and developed your Social Media plan the next step in the line should be to respond and monitor the results. There are different ways brands can respond to their audience. The best way to respond would be being where the audience is and responding to them via emails or blogs and build relationships with them. Start using Social Media to monitor the performance of your Social Media activity at each stage and start figuring out what’s working and what not.

Does you business have a Social Media plan if you think yes then feel free to share your thoughts with us and let us know what you think are the right steps for having a Social Media plan.