Ingredients for your Online Marketing Strategy

1. [How
should be your online
marketing strategy?]
[Online
Marketing
Strategy]

2. Having a marketing strategy is good, but having a marketing strategy that works is great! Last
year, I wrote several posts to uncover why businesses must formulate and practice a social media
marketing strategy that works. Whether it’s measuring the ROI on your social media efforts or
saving a dying business with social media, building a social media marketing strategy is one of the
basic building blocks to leveraging social media for your business.
Many businesses believe setting up Facebook and Twitter profiles will do a world of good to them
and that’s their definition of joining the social media bandwagon. However, the truth is that using
social media requires a careful thought process, strategic planning and flawless execution.
In this post, I present 5 proven tips which will help you build a social media marketing strategy
“that works”!
Observe Others and Analyze Your Marketing Strategy
Very often, businesses jump on to Facebook and Twitter without even analyzing what they need
out of these social networks. They claim that since their competitors are using social media so they
have no other choice but to adopt social media. Sooner than later, such businesses are caught off-
guard and their social media ambitions reach a tame end.
I reckon it’s important for businesses to analyze how social media can help them. They need to
observe how people use social media and how their competitors are leveraging it. Analyze your
business needs and how various social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others can
fulfill these needs.
What’s Your Social Marketing Strategy Action Plan?
Once you’ve determined what you want out of social media, the next important question is how
you get it. Businesses need to come up with an action plan with realistic targets and feasible time/
cost estimates. If your action plan takes forever to achieve or if it requires you to invest a fortune,
there’s a strong case to revisit your action plan. In such cases, it’s best to start with concrete short-
term goals such as I want to have 2,000 Facebook Friends in the first 3 months or I want to close 5
deals with my Twitter followers this month etc.

3. Execute Your Marketing Strategy
A marketing strategy is only as good as those who see it through. Once you have a social media
marketing strategy in place, it’s important to focus on getting the execution right. Very often,
businesses need to take a call on whether they can execute their social media strategy themselves
or do they need to hire specialist social media experts? When in doubt, seek help from an expert.
Evaluate Your Marketing Strategy
Most business follow a simple rule when it comes to adopting new technologies or paradigms – If
it boosts my business’ ROI, it’s worth the investment. Social Media is no exception to this rule.
Unless, businesses see value addition from social media, they are not going to take the plunge.
Therefore, it’s important for businesses to evaluate the impact of their social media efforts.
Evaluating social media ROI is easier said than done. There’s no single criteria based on which you
can determine the success/ failure of your social media strategy. For an in-depth analysis of how
you can measure your social media ROI, read this post.
Refine Your Marketing Strategy
The real beauty of social media lies in its dynamism. Social media is changing all the time. For
example, if you logged in to your business’ Facebook profile, after a long gap, you would have
realized that it’s now a Fan Page. Therefore, it’s important to continuously refine your social media
strategy and adopt a flexible approach with the changing social media scenario.