Successful social media strategies for professional services firms must be targeted and meaningful. If you are with a small to medium-sized firm, you don’t have time to waste by spreading your social media efforts too thin. In addition, there are so many great social media marketing tips on the Internet today that it is difficult to read through all these articles to arrive at the right combination of activities that makes sense.
The following are timeless tips that will help you begin to develop a solid and meaningful social media marketing strategy:
- Define your "social" goals: Are you seeking increased brand awareness
Or are you drumming up new leads? Maybe you want to incorporate both of these goals. It is crucial to formulate the type of content which will help you reach the desired outcome. Whatever the case, developing a social media strategy for professional services firms involves evaluating progress regularly to refine and enhance the strategy over time. - Provide content that addresses your target audience: Create prospective client personas that depict your ideal client type(s) and develop profiles of the companies you'd like to target as new clients. Include meaningful demographic details for your industry sector and desired project types. Some client persona questions include: What is the prospect's role? What are their concerns? What are their pain points? What is their discipline? How about location--are you focusing nationally or locally? Once you understand your client types and company profiles, you will be able to provide targeted content that specifically informs your community about the things they want to know.
- Select desired platforms: New social media networks, image-sharing tools, bookmarking websites, and more emerge constantly. Currently, the channels with significant traction include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Google+. The latter is a good choice partly because everyone depends on Google search for business. Add others whose user demographics match your own as time allows.
- Create narratives about your firm's valuable difference: What unique selling propositions set your firm apart, making you a better choice than the competition? Narrow these defining characteristics into simple phrases or metaphoric taglines, and build your brand around them. Focus your posts on narratives that educate your audiences about how your services solve a problem, not the actual service. Your audience does not care about you - they want to know how your services can solve a problem or add value to their actions.
- Develop a roadmap for connectivity: Assemble a themed marketing calendar that includes information like upcoming content/blog titles keyed to the season or a new service introduction. Consider sparking conversations on industry forums, LinkedIn groups, or Quora--and developing other social media activities. This creates a long view where you'll quickly see if any marketing activity is missing or if the lead-in to your new product/service starts early enough. It is important to note that businesses that regularly engage daily tend to generate more traffic than those that only engage weekly. A completed roadmap guides content creation promotes social media interactions and allows for sharing strategies for each new service, case study, image, infographic, and white paper.
- Don't forget to measure your strategy effectiveness: It is important to measure social media marketing strategy ROI by closely examining how each social media channel is performing. Compare an established channel to newly established channels. While every channel has its' own set of benefits, it is essential to evaluate the quality of traffic they drive to your website.
These steps form the basis of a social media strategy for professional services firms. By defining identity, goals and strategy upfront, you'll maximize the impact of your social media activity.
More importantly, have fun developing your firm's "social" strategy!
Contact Colosi Marketing for more information.
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