Amidst the emotional roller coaster that is social media marketing, there is always one constant. Paid Social.
The rise of so many new businesses with access to the digital space has congested the space of social media to the nth degree. It's very difficult as a consumer to not be overwhelmed by the noise.
One solution to this: having a strong Paid Social Media Strategy.
We're going to cover the main 5 building blocks of your Paid Social Media Strategy in this article, so you can cut through the noise.
What is a Paid Social Media Strategy?
Your Paid Social Media Strategy can sit within your overall marketing strategy or, social media strategy or, completely on it's own.
It should act as a guide that allows you to stay on track when you are spending money on paid social media, detailing the who's, the what's and the why's.
It is a document that will give you a good understanding of when you are succeeding with your paid social efforts or when you are not performing, providing the framework not only to setup and start your advertising but also to change dynamically when needed.
1. What are your goals?
As with everything in digital marketing, you must have clearly set goals.
The whole point is to be as specific as possible in what you are trying to achieve and have a good understanding of performance through measurement so you can assess if it provides a return on investment or not.
Start off by writing down all the main goals your company has.
Then decide which ones are achievable via social media.
For example, if you are a mobile app and growing your user base or increasing downloads is an important goal for you, using social media can help with that.
It helps to attach a KPI to each goal, so you can easily judge success further down the line.
2. Target Audience & Buyer Personas
Once you have your goals figured out, you can start to think about who (customer) can help you hit those goals.
i.e. who is going to download your app or who is going to purchase your product.
An easy way to figure this out is ask yourself what problem does your product or service solve and who experiences these problems the most?
Essentially, who can benefit the most from using your product, app or service.
You may already have a detailed target audience and buyer persona(s) defined. In which case (in fact in all cases) you need to think about how those audiences and profiles interact with social media.
How do they consume while using social media?
Write it down. This will give you direction on when (holidays, specific weekdays, specific hours of the day), where (which channels) and what (video, image, stories, long form ect…) to advertise.
