How to create a SOCIAL MEDIA marketing strategy USING INSTAGRAM By: Samantha Bastien

What is a marketing strategy? A business’ overall game plan for reaching people and turning them into customers of the product or service that business provides. Contains value proposition, key marketing messages, information on the target customer, and other high level elements.

The creation of a marketing strategy Created out of a value proposition Summarizes the competitive advantage a company has in its market. Usually provides the key messages for all marketing Walmart – ”everyday low prices” which is the strategy behind it’s marketing messages

Where does social media come in? Marketing strategy + social networks The more specific you can get with your plan, the more effective you’ll be in its implementation. Measure successes and failures

Step 1: creating a social media marketing strategy Establish the objectives and goals that you hope to achieve. Allows you to quickly react when social media campaigns are not meeting expectations. Goals should align with marketing strategy Go beyond vanity metrics such as retweets and likes and focus on things such as leads generated, web referrals, and conversion rate. Keep your audience in mind

Step 2: creating a social media marketing strategy Asses current social media use and how it’s working Who is connecting with you and how you compare to your competitors Does anything need to be updated or deleted? Create mission statements for each network – will help focus on a very specific goal for instagram, Facebook, or any other social network What is your brand’s tone, voice, and style? What kind of language do your accounts use? Do you utilize GIF’S, LIVE FEED, ETC?

step 3: creating A SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGY Time to create an online presence Optimize profiles for seo – can help generate more web traffic to your online properties Cross – promote social accounts Profiles should be filled out completely Images and texts should be optimized for the social network in question

Step 4: creating a social media marketing strategy Gather social media marketing inspiration. What are others in your industry sharing? Use their social media listening to see how you can distinguish yourself from competitors and appeal to prospects they might be missing. Compare your tweets/posts to competitors.

Step 5: creating a social media marketing strategy Create a content marketing plan and a social media content calendar Comprised of strategies for content creation and content curation. Schedule your messaging in advance rather than updating constantly throughout the day – this gives you opportunity to work hard on the language and format of these messages rather than writing them on the fly. Be spontaneous

Step 5: CREATING A SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGY Make sure your calendar reflects the mission statement you’ve assigned to each social profile. If you are unsure how to allocate your recourses, follow the 80- 20 percent rule: 80 percent of your posts should inform, educate, or entertain your audience and the other 20 percent can directly promoter your brand.

STEP 6: CREATING A SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGY Test, evaluate, and adjust your social media marketing plan. Rely on constant testing. Track the number of clicks your links get Use platforms such as Hootsuite’s social media analytics to track success and reach of social campaigns Track page visits driven by social media with google analytics

INSTGRAM Instagram is a visual platform designed for customers to post, share, comment, and engage through digital media. A picture is worth a thousand words More than 700 million total monthly active users, now claiming over 8 million accounts using business profiles Nearly 60 percent of instagram users ae between the ages of 18 – 29, making instagram a highly competitive network to reach this valuable demographic.

How to use Instagram to market your brand Determine your objectives. What do you want to achieve on instagram? Who is your target audience and which members of your audience are active on instagram? How will instagram integrate with the other networks in your social media marketing strategy?

Develop an instagram content strategy Content is the foundation of your instagram presence. Build content themes Instagram photos with faces generate 38 percent more likes

Determine content medium and ratio Consider a balance of content types that will work best for the resources you have and the engagement you want from your audience If video works better for your brand, use it more Quality matters

Using supplementary apps Instagram offers several supplementary apps that help you get even more creative with your posts. Hyperlapse: allows users to shoot stop – motion – time – lapse Layout: combine photos and videos together in a single instagram post through custom layouts and features like mirrored landscapes. Boomerang: plays a short cut video forward, but also backward, repeatedly to create nonstop motion.

Hyperlapse Hyperlapse

Layout Justin Eicher Instagram

Boomerang Boomerang

Creating user – generated content If your instagram community members share posts featuring your brand, you have access to repost potential content gold Curating content from your fans allows you to foster audience engagement and create an incentive for your audience to share posts AirBnB

Maintain a brand aesthetic Do you have an established color palette? A cool or warm tone in pictures? Your instagram content, and the editing effects and filters you choose, should reflect the same. Consider a social media style guide to maintain consistent branding

Put effort into your captions Captions are essential to feeding your brand’s story. Include the most important part of your message within the first three lines Keep users’ attention to inspire them and take action

Trusting your hashtags Make hashtags easy to discover, remember, and easy to read. Use hashtags to connect with new followers and increase engagement on your posts

The power of geolocations Location tagging is another way to increase engagement Allows users to discover your content through a specific tagged location. Posts with location receive 79% higher engagement than posts without

Optimizing your bio What is important to your brand? Educate Include branded hashtag(s)

Feature writing and instagram

https://www.instagram.com/playerstribune/?hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/uninterrupted/?hl=en

WORKS CITED https://hootsuite.com/education http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketing-strategy.asp https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-marketing-strategy-guide/