In today’s frantic world, how nice would it be to have everything you could possibly need right by your side? A company called BauBax did just that by designing clothing equipped with all your travel essentials built right into the fabric of their sweaters and jackets! Aside from the warmth and comfort of your favorite outerwear, a BauBax jacket includes 15 extra perks from a neck pillow and eye mask to a drink pocket and earphone holders.
After raising over $3 million on Kickstarter, with an original goal of only $20,000, BauBax’s product design is indicative of how a master plan with ability to provide all the elements of value in one easy to implement structure can lead to success.
BauBax redefined the efficiency and functionality of their clothing line by strategically building solutions for the everyday traveler right into the framework of their product. A good social media strategy should do this, too. Your audience is hard to reach. They have hectic schedules and an array of online stimulus tapping their short attention spans on a daily basis.
Your social media interactions need to be personalized, consistent, and adaptable to achieve success, but this takes a plan. Just like the intricately woven details of a BauBax jacket causing it stand out against the competition, your social media plan should incorporate these eight elements to plan for social media success:
- Identify your goals – Be sure your goals provide your company with a concrete direction of where you want to go. The important thing to remember is to keep your goals at a reasonable number. Having a few strong goals with a clear direction is better than having several general goals that are hard to measure and cause your resources to become constrained.
- Understand your audience – Always deliver relevant content. Understanding your customer, what interests them, and how they interact with your content is essential to having a successful dialogue. Creating buyer personas containing detailed characteristics of your target audience(s) is a great way to determine how your social exchange will be crafted.
- Analyze the competition/influencers – Take a look at how other companies and influencers in your industry are interacting on their social media channels. You can use this research to get started with methods that have shown success and also determine how you can set yourself apart to make your engagement unique and memorable.
- Develop your content – Content is vital to any marketing initiative, but not all content is created equal. Don’t just produce copy to fill an empty space. Good content has a personality and that personality reflects your brand. It delivers an authentic message using a style and tone that aligns with your company’s brand and in a range of formats (text, infographics, images, videos) that resonates best with your audience. Content development is the oxygen to your social media strategy. Your message is important and the connection you make with your audience can create recurring value, so take care in how you craft your communications.
- Choose your channels – Always remember you do not have to be active on every social media platform to be successful. Investigate which social channels would be a good fit for your brand and the social connection you are trying to make first, then invest in creating the right atmosphere for those channels with your content strategy. You can always add new social channels down the road, after learning how to make valuable connections with the initial set.
- Choose your tools – Content calendars, publishing automation, editing tools and analytic reporting programs are all available to you to help make implementing your social media strategy as easy as possible. Once you have a thorough content plan in place you can make it more efficient with a range of social media tools.
- Monitor your activity – Once your content is published be sure to continuously monitor it. It is important to see how customers are engaging with your content. You can build new, more relevant content from the feedback and positive interactions you are receiving, while also moderating negative encounters with responsive follow-ups.
- Measure the results – Lastly, always be sure to measure and report your results. Almost all social media programs provide some form of analytics. You can identify trends, make competitor comparisons, and evaluate aspects such as the timing and frequency of posts. Using data to review key performance indicators, especially what your customers like and dislike, will determine if your strategy is on target or if your methods need be adjusted to achieve future success.
Finding the right balance between these elements can be tricky. But, if you listen to your customers, create engaging content, and continually monitor your efforts, then you will see a great social media strategy come together. When following a well-designed strategy, your internal resources will flourish and your customers will be anxiously awaiting the next serving of hand-crafted social content.
Not only will your company succeed, but your customer’s preference will become more favorable and your audience will grow. Just like the BauBax jacket, creating something that contains all the right elements for efficiency and functionality can lead to great success.
