You know having a social media strategy is integral to having a successful business. A top reputation management firm or an online business-building service will recommend a social media strategy. With a consumer base that’s becoming even savvier to advertising techniques, they’re less willing to work with companies that only follow a traditional advertising path and aren’t consistently connected to their customers. Making sure that you have a social component for your business is essential your overall brand reach, customer retention and lead generation.

Why Interact With Social Media?

Social media is where many of your customers gather. Just about every person or business has some kind of social media account. Most use that account at least once a day, with many scrolling through posts, tweets or pictures for hours every day. That’s a captive audience you want to tap into. While most companies understand this concept, few actually understand how to get the promised benefits of a social media campaign.

Forrester reports that social media spending is up; however, that doesn’t necessarily mean that social media strategies are effective. Simply setting up a page and sticking your business logo on it is not enough. Like any other marketing strategy, your social media strategy needs to have a plan.

At the very least, there needs to be an incentive for your customers or clients to bother following that page. With a newsfeed that is already so clogged with information, posted by their friends or by the other people they follow, you don’t want your company just to get lost in the noise. Even if you have a lot followers or fans, you may not necessarily be seeing higher conversions, if you don’t actually have a social media strategy.

As this Forbes article outlines, your strategy should be all about improving engagement, not just gathering followers. Those that focus on the wrong numbers (followers instead of conversions), are not going to have as much success as those that focus on how to turn followers into customers. Your strategy will want to line up with your business’s goals and should integrate all of the other forms of marketing you are currently using, including email and content marketing. Many of the clients we work with treat their social media page as something completely separate from the rest of their marketing efforts, or even completely separate from marketing on the whole. Don’t fall into this trap if you want to garner the best results.

Social Media Today

Social media is now in its teen years, and unlike many online fads that come and go, social media will continue to grow in popularity and relevancy. Many of us are increasingly dependent on new digital technologies to acquire our entertainment, products, content, information and stimulation.

What was once a communication tool for younger adults is now used by people of all ages and for many different purposes. A previousBarna Group study, stated, “… older adults tend to use technology for information and convenience, while “younger adults rely on technology to facilitate their search for meaning and connection.”

We know some people will only want to use social media to connect with their friends, while there are many people that use social media as their information hub. It’s where they get their news (not only about their friends, but about the world) and also how they find new businesses to patronize. Because of the wide variety of people who use social media for a wide variety of reasons, it’s easy to find people that actually want to do business with you if your social media page lines up with the values and core message of your business. Check out the top rated social media sights below from Pew Research Center.

Social Media Engagement

Social media is home to one of the most active and engaged audiences on the internet. Unlike a banner ad across the bottom of the user’s screen that can be easily ignored (or even blocked with a browser extension), a social media campaign gets your name and your message right into the user’s newsfeed on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

To create more engagement or increase sales you can for instance, boost your post on Facebook, hold a contest on Twitter, and so much more!

Remember that a successful social media strategy requires work and attention, and often the hand of someone who truly understands what each social media network is for, how to establish goals and generate a strategic plan for your business to meet those goals. The personalized plan for your business (not a generic plan generated from general advice from online articles) can actually help you build a network and even enhance your media coverage activities to ultimately bring you more loyal customers. Now that’s strategic.