To succeed in today’s digital world, you need a digital marketing strategy that fits your business’ needs.

For those looking to break into the industry, here’s a quick how-to guide on developing a social media marketing strategy for your online store.

Set Your Own Goals And Measurement Metrics

One of the first things you’ll want to do is set your own goals and measurement metrics for your social media marketing efforts. Start by setting a weekly goal for your tweets, then measure how successful you are in achieving those goals. In addition, you can set up automated email campaigns to send out on a weekly basis to keep your audience engaged. For example, you can create an email campaign for your anniversary email list that will trigger on the anniversary of your store’s launch.

Determine Your Audience

Now that you have a goal in mind, you can determine your target audience for social media marketing. Start by assessing your online store’s demographics. What are the demographics, age range, and interests of your ideal buyer? Once you have an idea of your target audience, you can craft your social media strategy to speak to this group of people.

For example, if your target audience is women aged 25 to 45 who are interested in fashion and style, then your social media strategy should reflect this. Create content that is targeted towards this group and use popular hashtags to attract their attention.

Choose The Right Platform

Now that you have a target audience in mind, you can choose which platform to use for your social media marketing efforts. Popular social media platforms include but are not limited to:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• (Twitter) @
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• YouTube
• …and more

Each one of these platforms has a different structure and audience, so you need to choose which one is the best for your business. To make this decision, simply evaluate which one provides the most value and exposure.

Decide On Your Budget

One of the first things you’ll want to do when developing your social media strategy is to set a budget. How much are you willing to spend on social media marketing? To get an idea of what is reasonable, you can refer to other brands’ social media marketing budgets and compare them to your own. To create a realistic budget, you’ll have to take several things into consideration:

• Your target audience’s size
• The frequency of your posts
• The content you post
• Your target market’s location
• The type of content you create (e.g., video content or blogs)
• The mediums you use (e.g., video or blog posts)
• How much you’re willing to spend on each type of content (e.g., a couple hundred dollars for a blog post, a few thousand dollars for a popular YouTube video)

Once you have a general idea of what you should spend, you can develop a more specific budget for the following elements:

• Attracting new customers to your store (e.g., Google AdWords)
• Reaching out to existing customers (e.g., Facebook ads)
• Monitoring the performance of your campaigns (e.g., Google Analytics)
• Tracking the results of your efforts (e.g., Hootsuite or Radian6)
• …and more

With a general idea of what you need to spend and a realistic budget in mind, you can develop a social media marketing strategy that will best serve your business’ needs.