Social Media Marketing Strategies

I have a very interesting post for you all, recently my friend came to me, asking for advice on what social media marketing strategies he can undertake to promote his online store for sporting gear. I think that is a very important thing to realise how much social media impacts our lives, and to even think of launching a brand without working with social media will only be one’s downfall.

The first advice I gave to him was to seek out this model implemented by Sandeep Kautish and Navdeep Kochhar in their ebook ‘Handbook of Social Media Enabled Marketing’.

social media marketing strategy (source: social media marketing plan for the second half of the year 2015)

1. Set goals

2. Determine Audience

3. Choose Platform

4. Create Content

5. Implement

6. Track & Measure progress

7. Adjust

All these steps are very important but today I will be discussing 4 of them in great detail.

Number 1 & 2 correlate together to form the foundation of starting an online business: determine your audience and choose a platform

This step is the core of social media marketing, as it helps to get your brand out into the economy whilst finding and researching your audience. My friend is launching an online brand in the sporting goods market sporting, this market as whole is a multi-billion-dollar industry, with retail sales of sporting goods reaching $45.8 billion in 2003 (D. Svala). From this information it can be assumed that the audience that will be interested in buying the product are customers who invested in their health, which correlates strongly with level of personal disposable income (D.Svala).

After finding the audience, it is then critical to choose a platform. This platform allows faster communication between the customers and the business owner, as well as promoting new products and deals/sales. The top three social medias that are used in Australia; Facebook, YouTube & Instagram (Civic Web Media, 2018). My friend then decided to make his main page on Facebook and then have YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat as his social media platforms to promote his brand.

Number 3: Create Content

Even if business has an amazing platform with lots of different products, without new innovative and creative content the business will struggle. The content not only interacts with customers but invites new customers to look at the site and purchase products. My friend has decided that for his content, he would be having a sales at specific times to encourage customer and he would also have deals that involved more than two to three people, which would bring new customers. My friend is determined to create a loyal customer base through his strong communication and events with them.

Number 4, Always have new goals

The last step I would like to discuss is always creative and thinking of new goals to achieve. Through social media, my friend can receive feedback which he can then use to implement into making new goals to motivate his customer base. His goals that he has set are to try and implement ambassadors for his company and start making YouTube videos on how to use products or best workouts and have collabs with other influences.

References

1. Civic Web Media. (2018). Australia's most popular social media sites 2018. (online) https://www.civicwebmedia.com.au/australias-most-popular-social-media-sites-2018/ (Accessed 20 Sep. 2018).

2. D. Salva, H. (2018). Sporting Goods Retail Store Business Plan Sample - Market Analysis | Bplans. (online) Bplans.com. https://www.bplans.com/sporting_goods_retail_store_business_plan/market_analysis_summary_fc.php (Accessed 17 Sep. 2018).

3. Kautish, S. and Kochhar, N. (2017). Handbook of Social Media Enabled Marketing. 1st ed. (ebook) LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318645779_Handbook_of_Social_Media_Enabled_Marketing (Accessed 18 Sep. 2018).