Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display

6 Steps to Creating a Paid Social Media Strategy that will Increase Sales

By: Viral Nation | 3 mins read | Nov 23, 2022
A paid social media strategy will work only if you have the right strategy in place. A well-defined and engaging strategy can help boost your brand awareness, attract more consumers and ultimately, increase sales. Social media ads can be very effective because they are hyper-targeted and adjusted based on previously collected data.  Here are 6 steps on effectively creating a paid social media strategy to increase sales.

1. Identify goals within your budget.

Your team must have clear goals and objectives to help you measure the strategy’s success later on. Goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound.  After setting your strategy goals, determining the budget comes next. A social media campaign budget can be used to allocate resources and help you measure the campaign's effectiveness. There’s no set rule on how much money to allocate for social media, but you need to make sure you leave enough money to not only cover your paid media campaigns but also content creation, influencers and any software or tools that might help achieve your goals.

2. Determine target audience and corresponding platform

Having a well-defined and engaging strategy can help boost your sales, so start with identifying a target audience and which corresponding social media platform they spend the most time on. For instance, if you are aiming to target Gen Z, you might want to run a TikTok campaign.  You can also break up your target audience into different categories depending on their intent, subcultures and interests by analyzing their purchase behaviour.  Determining their interests can help you identify the various pain points of your audience and create compelling messaging tailored to them.

3. Create engaging content you wish to promote

It’s more important than ever that businesses prioritize their marketing efforts on these platforms, and if you wish to reach a specific market, daily posting is often required. Brands can reach millions of potential customers actively engaged on various social networks.  Getting to the point with less text and more videos is a good start. Video is a high-impact medium that can be used to promote products or services and is the most engaging to viewers. Would you rather read a lengthy review or watch someone give a quick review of the same product? Utilizing user-generated content is a great way to create content to keep your audience engaged. Holding a contest or challenge is an easy way to attract more followers and encourage people to create content for you that you can repost later. Share reviews about your services or products to show that your customers are satisfied. This can help build trust and credibility with your potential customers.

4. Define the start and end dates of your campaign

Having an established start and end date will help in setting goals and ensure you're on track through your paid campaign.  It's important to keep in mind that the schedule can change as your project evolves and all social media campaign timelines will be different. For example, holiday campaigns might only last a week or so, where a hashtag challenge will last until engagement drops off.

5. Track and measure your results

Now, it's time to start measuring! Some social media platforms will provide you with various tools that will allow you to capture and analyze the various metrics you're looking for. Sometimes, you'll need to use third-party platforms or build your own. After you've collected the necessary data, report your results. This data gives you a baseline for future measurement and can be shared with your key stakeholder groups. You should regularly check in on your metrics to ensure they're getting the most out of your efforts. After a few months, you'll see how valuable the data you've collected is and how it can be used to improve your marketing. Highlighting the important numbers will allow your stakeholders to easily understand the data and visualize it in a way they can easily understand. A clear and engaging graph can also help communicate the results.

6. Review everything — and repeat

Before you start another campaign, make sure that you thoroughly review your program. This will allow you to identify areas where you can improve and make changes, and areas where you excelled.  If you plan to or are running a paid social media campaign, you must understand how you're doing. Are you meeting your company's goals using platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter? A consistent and reliable analytics solution is crucial to ensure you're getting the most out of your efforts.
_About the author
Viral Nation

Viral Nation is a new media innovation group that powers the social ecosystem through integrated solutions that align strategy, talent, media, and technology. As pioneers in the influencer space, Viral Nation is comprised of a full-service creative agency, a creator and athlete-influencer representation agency, and a technology division creating modern marketing solutions for the social media age.