Published by linker 5
Posted on July 25, 2020
By Jon Michail, Image Group International, Founder & Group CEO, Forbes Coaching Council Member
Every small-medium sized business owner dreams of a large online following, with fans captivating every new release, sharing every post and treats your marketing message like gospel.
However, many managers fail to understand how to get such a large following and believe that it is up to chance or pure luck if your brand goes ‘viral’.
This idea could not be further from the truth. With adequate investment in online marketing and your social media channels, any brand can become the virial sensation it deserves to be.
Here are the top six reasons why you should strategically invest in online:
Before diving in, a manager needs a good understanding of the online landscape and how each channel interacts with one another. Now there are as many separate websites and social media apps as there are grains of sand on the beach, and we would be here all day if we went through each one by one.
Instead, brands need to consider what channels they can invest in for the best return:
Once you know where you want your brand to be seen, its time to choose if you are going to place content there or leverage the channels ad network.
Ad networks allow you to promote your content (for a fee) to an audience outside of your usual reach. You can set the location, demographics, psychographics and more of your preferred target audience.
At a minimum, all brands need an online marketing and social media plan that outlines the growth action for at least the next twelve weeks. Brands should look to channels that best fits their audience.
Start with a channel first, then map out each channel with the following
Plan to spread content over several weeks – if you can’t post every day, post at least three times a week per ‘best fit’ channel. For example, you don’t need to post a YouTube video every day, but once a month is okay (as it takes so much time to create a high-value video).
Now this question is a massive can of worms that we cannot possibly cover in this article. However, there are several ‘types’ of content that work wonders for your digital presence:
Jon Michail
Remember, you have to give a reason for why people should follow your brand. What is the story here? Why should they care? Content should either make them see the real people behind the brand (such as a manager walking through their new investment, for example) or see what makes you so passionate about why you do it.
Another powerful technique is to use social media ads. This is different from social media content as you are spending funds to promote marketing messages to a specific audience not already following you, as opposed to just letting the content organically exist on the internet.
Plus, once you know who is engaging with your ads (use this step to discover who loves your product), you can create what is known as a ‘lookalike audience’. A lookalike campaign is a special algorithm that finds new people who are just like your customers, and in the right hands, is incredibly powerful.
When it comes to spending money on ads, remember that consistency is the key. You can let spending run away if you are not careful and end up getting almost no return.
A common problem is setting the ad campaign to attract viewers, and the algorithm might decide that the best viewers are bored commuters in some random location who have no desire to buy your product or services, but instead click on your photo because they think it’s something else.
You need to approach ad campaigns with strategic outcomes in mind first and foremost and when done right, will give you powerful results indeed.
With a combined content market strategy and well-placed ads that seek out new fans, any brand with the right strategy in place can go from an unknown underdog to a household name over time. Just don’t treat this exercise as an overnight success.
But remember under all of this strategy is delivering genuine value to your viewers. If you try to take shortcuts, or you don’t offer value to your readers, they will turn on you and decide that they can find better quality content elsewhere – perhaps at your competition!
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