The Ultimate Social Media Marketing Checklist – Helpful Tips for Beginners

Social Media Marketing Checklist
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You know you need traffic if you’re going to generate sales.

You know you need exposure if you’re going to generate traffic.

You know you need social media if you’re going to generate exposure.

However, if your social media marketing plan is producing disappointing results, use this social media marketing checklist to ensure you are following the best marketing practices you can.

Get to know your customers. Make connections. Do you know your customers’ birthdays? Do you wish them happy holidays? Do you know their first names? Being called by their first names makes people feel connected even if they’ve never met you. These tactics will keep you in your customers’ minds when they go to purchase again.

Listen to the consumer. With so many choices on the web, when consumers dictate their preferences, companies need to listen or get edged out by people willing to adapt to their customers’ needs.

Use tools. Sites like Buzzsumo.com and Google Trends to tell you what people are interested in. You can also survey your readers. Sites like SurveyMonkey are ideal for this. Social media sites like Twitter also let you create polls.

Approach Social Media Marketing

Check your analytics to see which social media sites are sending you visitors. Focus your marketing campaigns there.

Follow the 80/20 rule. 20% of your efforts should result in 80% of your sales. According to Mostly Blogging,

“The rule says for every 20 minutes you spend at those sites, you will get 80% return on your 20 minutes. ‘80% of what?’ you might ask. 80% of your goal. For example, let’s say I spend 20 minutes networking at a site. What is my goal? Is it to get 10 new conversions? If I do, that would be a 100% return on my expectations. The 80/20 rule dictates I should be satisfied with 80% return on my time invested which would be 8 new signups to my Email list.”

Employ heat maps to show you where your customers hover on your web page. Website visitors generally look where they hover.

Check your bounce rate to know how quickly people are leaving your site. If you see this metric getting worse over time, utilize methods to keep visitors on your site longer. For example, people love videos. Using them will keep people on your site longer since they will spend time watching the videos.

Offer testimonials. Don’t forget about branding. Consumers want to give their money to businesses they trust. Testimonials from happy customers will boost consumer confidence in your brand. How about using video testimonials? Being able to see and hear your happy customers will boost your credibility and your bounce rate.

Offer testimonials

Use A/B split testing to know what resonates with your readers. You can use MailChimp to A/B test your subject line, name, content, and send time. Aweber and other services should have similar features.

If people unsubscribe from your list, see if they offer a reason. They have the option to check a reason if they unsubscribe. Listen to their reasoning and try to improve.

Offer an incentive for subscribing to your list. Everyone loves a freebie. If people sign up for email notifications from your site, what can you offer them? This “option” should be something of value to them, something they would normally pay for. You should give it to them for free in exchange for their email address. Stuck for what to offer? Survey your email list to get ideas on what would entice them to sign up to get on email lists. If your email list isn’t growing as fast as you’d like, offer these incentives.

Check your competitors. How many incentives do they offer? Can you beat them? What are your competitors’ prices? Are you competitive?

Avoid posting the same generic content on many social media sites. People will eventually tune out your message if they see it repeatedly.

Focus your efforts and your budget on the site that is returning the best results for you. For example, Facebook is known for having the best results when it comes to ads on social media sites. Yet, if your audience isn’t on Facebook, you’re wasting your time marketing there. Check Google Analytics so you can know what social media sites your audience is on directly before they come to your site. Focus your marketing efforts on those places. Alexa.com will provide that information as well.

Place targeted ads. Alexa.com will also tell you the gender that frequents your site. Target your ads to that gender. Alexa will also tell you the geographical location of your website visitors. Perhaps you want to consider location in your advertising. You can target your ads to people who live in certain types of climates.

Online Advertising

Be patient. Consumers are set in their ways. If they are happy customers, they may not be easily open to change. However, if they continue to see your targeted ads, converting new customers is likely.

Read More: The Benefits That Influencer Marketing Can Offer Your Business

Conclusion

In closing, these are social media marketing’s best practices. Are you following these 16 tips? If so, you should see results. If not, start today.

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Author: Janice Wald

Janice Wald is an author, a freelance writer, a blogger, and a blogging coach. She blogs at MostlyBlogging.com where she shares tips for bloggers and marketers.