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.

Why strategically investing in social media and online is important

Here are the top six reasons why you should strategically invest in online:

1. Paid ads generate leads – A new potential customer can see your brand and then purchase from you.
2. It creates brand awareness – 91% of brand managers believe that investing a few hours a week in social media massively increases brand awareness.
3. Budget-friendly – compared to TV ads and print media, online is far cheaper and far more cost-effective.
4. Connecting direct to customers via online increases brand loyalty.
5. Drives traffic to the website – More visitors means more sales. This one company grew its brand pages by 44,000 fans in just four months thanks to digital investment.
6. Makes your brand a thought leader – Having a significant online presence means that you will not only rank first when it comes to online searches but that people will associate you with the product type.

Understanding the online market place

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:

• Google network – Everything from SEO on the google search engine to have an advert run on the google ads network (text ads across the web) and even YouTube.
• Facebook network – Facebook and Instagram, and their equivalent ad network
• Twitter + others – Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat and even TikTok should be considered. Not every brand applies to these (especially the more youth-driven channels), but any manager should find them.

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.

• Content placed organically can only be spread by three ways – being found by viewers using hashtags or keywords (e.g. typing Hollywood Hills and your content is interesting enough to be clicked on), being shared amongst fans (being tagged) or in some cases, an algorithm deciding to promote it (very rare).

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.

Starting with a plan

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

• Day
• Channel
• Content
• Text description
• Hashtags

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).

What content should I post?

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:

• Product photos – obviously you need to show the product or service in its glory.
• Case studies – show off the work you have done for someone else.
• Testimonials – similar to case studies but in the clients’ words.
• Tutorials – nothing cements you as a thought leader than a series of value giving lessons. Don’t worry if it feels like you are giving away secrets of the trade; viewers will rather see your expertise and hire you to do it instead.
• Lifestyle/Brand image – if you genuinely have nothing to post, posting something that inspires the brand and reflects the culture you are trying to emulate.

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.

Incorporate social media ads

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.

Bottom line

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!