From Brick to Click in 60 Days: Go Social

And… we’re back with a new edition of our actionable series, Brick to Click in 60 Days, where we’ll tell you how you can use social media, to influence customers to shop on your website.

But, before we begin, don’t forget to check out our Weeks 4–6 plan, ‘Discover the World Wide Web, if you missed catching it earlier.

We’re now in the final two weeks of Brick to Click in 60; Weeks 7 & 8! You’ve quite possibly built your website by now or are halfway through the process. So what next? Now, you need to reach out to your customers, and one of the surest ways to do that and get them to visit and shop on your website is by connecting with them on social media. Why? Because that’s where people hang out these days!

A recent study by Shopify states that young consumers are more likely to discover brands and shop via social media.

With consumers in India spending over 3 hours on an average per day on social media, eye-catching posts are one of the best ways to market your products to them.

So, here goes…

Plan Budgets for Social Media Spends: Money is precious, so make it count! How much money you set aside depends on the number of platforms you wish to leverage, or the paid ads you want to run, etc. Ideally set aside 35% to 45% of your marketing spends, for digital marketing activities, off which, allocate approximately 15% to 25% for social media — both organic and paid posts. Calculate the ROI on spends and track progress closely.

Action Tips:

• If you are starting on a small budget, focus on fewer locations and possibly only 1 or 2 platforms. If you are starting with a big budget, it would still be wise to be more focused.
• Try the A/B testing available on all platforms, to arrive at the best creative and copy for your ad.
• Set up a weekly review and track your progress.

Create a Social Media Calendar: Unleash the Marie Kondo of social media strategy — your social medial calendar! Use Excel/ Google Sheets or a readymade template to organise your posts efficiently, so that you never miss out on posting something pertinent. Remember, it can get very overwhelming when there is no plan. Having a calendar ensures you don’t miss important events, festivals, and days that are relevant to your brand. It also ensures you have a great mix of content. Depending on your appetite, you can schedule posts multiple times in a day, once every day, or even once in 3 days. But nothing less than 3 days! Social media is fast, and if you don’t post anything on your page for a week, you might just as well have lost the race.

Action Tips:

• Refer to a standard days and events calendar available easily online and start building your own calendar from there.
• Post on different days of the week as a trial, see when it is that you get the best response, and plan to post your hero content on those days.

Create a Content mix: Ensure you have at least 4 types of content in your calendar:

a. Product information (benefit, USP, etc)

b. Offers

c. Knowledge and information

d. Messages

Apart from these, what you will not have on the calendar is reactive posts for trends and events. Latch on to some trend-watch groups to get instant updates on trending posts.

Action Tips:

• Build a centralised content library for all the content you wish to share and organise it on a sharing platform like Google Drive for easy collaborations.
• Define what type of content you will post on specific days so that your feed is never monotonous.

Plan a Well-coordinated Digital Campaign: If you thought your organic posts and paid promotions were independent of one another, think again. The two work in tandem and in both cases, need to carry forward your brand’s values. Leverage organic posts to manage your online reputation and build a relationship with your audience. On the other hand, use paid promotions to market specific messages, product features, offers, etc. that are likely to get you paying customers, outside of your existing pool.

Action Tips:

• Create a strong Call to Action in all your paid promotions, like ‘Buy Now’, ‘Visit Profile’, etc., to influence potential buyers.
• Use remarketing strategies to communicate with visitors who may have recently engaged with your social media page.

Create and Curate Shareable Social Media Content: There are 4 rules of thumb to creating awesome social media content, which is guaranteed to give you success:

1. Use a mix of videos and images
2. Create ‘quick to write’ and ‘quick to comprehend’ copy for posts
3. Develop enough content, to last you at least a week
4. Use correct and trending hashtags. Also, tag relevant stakeholders on posts for wider reach

Action Tips:

• Develop a tone of voice (TOV) for your posts — they need to reflect your brand’s TOV
• Format text intelligently, using bullets, paragraphs, headers, etc., because nobody likes to read a long, boring monologue.
• Leverage influencer marketing to engage with your audience and develop a brand presence across a wider audience.

Conclusion: Get the most out of your social media, make it an extension of your website, and let the two complement each other. Create an unfailing strategy that helps you incorporate both organic and paid posts so that you raise awareness about your brand with the right audiences. Plan well in advance so that you always have something to say that will get your followers to sit up and take notice of. Finally, it boils down to creating an intuitive social media calendar that will help you organise all your wonderful ideas and plans in one place, at one time!