Social media marketing in Sri Lanka is becoming increasingly popular, but there are still many companies that are not using it effectively. Social media marketing is not just about creating profiles on various platforms and posting regular updates. It's about finding your target audience, understanding why they follow you, what they like and find engaging, what they respond to, and how you can increase their engagement with your brand.
Here are 10 tips for Sri Lankan companies that want to use social media marketing to its full potential.
1. Know Your Audience
As a business, you need to list down everything you know about your potential customers aka your target audience. Building various audience personas will help identify their characteristics, income levels, preferences, etc. Understanding your audience helps you in the following ways;
Helps you understand the platforms you need. You will be able to identify which social media platforms they use the most. If your target market is ideally made up of teens, then TikTok would be the best platform to build awareness and create a buzz around your brand. If your brand is catered toward a more professional audience then platforms like LinkedIn would be where you need to be present.
Helps you understand your brand identity. You can build your brand personality and brand voice based on the type of audience you hope to attract. This will then be carried forward throughout your marketing campaigns and especially your social media communication.
Helps you develop the right content pillars. Knowing your audience will help you develop the right content pillars that resonate with them the most. Content pillars are the different types of content that you can create to attract your audience. Creating the content pillars is one of the most important aspects of your social media marketing strategy.
2. Have SMART Goals
Before you start you need to know what your goals are. Having the goals set makes it that much easier to work on your strategy. For example, it could be to maintain an engagement rate of 3% on Instagram for the period 2022-2023, generate x number of leads per month from our social media accounts, increase brand awareness by x for the year, and increase the number of unique accounts reached per month or simply to increase your followers by 10,000 for the year.
On a cautionary note, we would like to advise you to avoid vanity metrics like increasing followers and focus more on engagement and building relationships. Having more social media users following your page doesn't necessarily mean it's doing your brand any favours.
3. Build A Strategy Around Your Goals
Your social media marketing strategy essentially tells you how you plan on achieving the goals listed. The social media marketing strategy will be your brand's guide to navigate you covering your content pillars, the type of content you will post (Eg: Images, Videos, Reels, Blogs, etc), post frequency, partnerships, collaborations, ad campaigns, and budgets.
Having a social media marketing strategy helps you be consistent in your approach, which is very important for the algorithm as irregular posting is harmful to your reach and engagement. Most social media algorithms favour profiles that consistently post over a period of time than brands that post sporadically.
4. Keep Your Costs Low
With the forex crisis faced by Sri Lanka as a whole, making USD payments for FB ads is that much more difficult. Roar Global is Sri Lanka's only Meta Authorized partner and they would be more than happy to assist you set up your ad accounts for social media advertising. You can then pay in LKR for yours thus limiting your USD payments. A quick and convenient solution!
5. Choose Influencers Wisely
Judge an influencer not by the number of followers but by the quality of their followers. Too many times we have seen brands doing partnerships with completely unrelated influencers simply because they ‘have a lot of followers'. Sometimes it makes more business sense to work with a micro-influencer with just a few thousand yet highly engaged followers than a mass influencer with a hundred thousand social media followers that have absolutely no relation to the product or industry they promote. A few of Sri Lanka's influencers have successfully established themselves in a niche market and working with them could yield great results for your business if your business happens to be within that niche.
6. Use The Right Hashtags
This is a common mistake we see with a lot of Sri Lankan businesses. The understanding of how hashtags work is relatively unknown even amongst some of the social media agencies. Too often I’ve seen brands with just a hundred followers on Instagram using the hashtag "srilanka" which has a higher DAPC score and should only be used by accounts with a higher number of followers and more engagement. Your hashtags should always depend on the size of your account and the type of post. Here are pictures of a client account, where we show the difference between incorrect hashtag use and proper hashtag use.
Using incorrect hashtags
Using the right hashtags
7. Jump on trends aka trendjacking
If your business wants to stay relevant, then it needs to jump on social media trends aka trendjacking. This is especially important in today’s ever-changing market where customers are constantly looking for new ways to communicate. By being on top of the trends, your brand shows that it is with the times, and this can lead to increased audience engagement.
8. Go Organic! Don't rely too much on paid ads
While social media advertising is a great way to get followers, relying too heavily on them can be harmful. Instead, try to get followers organically by creating valuable content and building relationships. This will create a more loyal and engaged fanbase.
As a social media professional, I find an overdependence on ads as the main way to generate followers and engagement is just plain lazy. Yes, it delivers quick results but soon after you have stopped using the ads your account will stagnate. Too often, have we taken over accounts with over 10,000 followers but with very limited audience engagement and reach. The best accounts are those with a natural and more organic growth that builds community.
9. Engage With Your Audience
Keep your social media presence active by replying to every comment and message on all online platforms. This will help you build a relationship with your audience and drive organic growth. By responding to each one personally, you can show that you care about what they have to say. This will increase follower engagement, and in turn, your ROI. If you find your engagement rate dwindling it is advised to run an engagement-based social media campaign across all social media channels.
Some of the ways you can increase social media user engagement are;
- Having polls/stickers on your stories - Ending your caption with a question - Commenting on other social media accounts and profiles - Creating engaging content that drives conversations
Remember, engaging with your audience is the cornerstone of effective social media management!
10. Measure! Optimise! Repeat!
Evaluate your social media performance each month and see if your strategy is effective and which areas need tweaking. Keep optimizing your strategy as many times as needed in order to ensure you are on track to achieving your goals. It may appear to some that a 6-month strategy should be followed through without any changes but the digital world is different and you need to be flexible in order to stay ahead of the competition.
Hire A Social Media Agency
While social media marketing can be effective on its own, hiring a social media agency can help increase the ROI and ensure that your brand is seen in the most favorable light. When working with a social media agency, they will be able to create a cohesive strategy that will help you reach your business’s goals.
Social media agencies have the experience and knowledge to create effective campaigns, and they can handle all the details so you can focus on your business.
Social media agencies have the experience and knowledge to create effective campaigns, and they can handle all the details so you can focus on your business.
The services offered by a digital marketing agency or social media agency are as follows;
Social Media Account Setup
Content Creation or Content Marketing
Social Media Brand Reputation Analysis
Social Media Competitive Analysis
Social Media Account Management
Social Media Marketing Plan
Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Optimization
Developing a Social Media Marketing Strategy
PPC / Google Ads
Email Marketing
Graphic Designing
Social Media Advertising
There are a number of agencies that specialize in social media marketing, so it's important to do your research and find an agency that meets your specific needs.
If you would like to learn more tips or get a free consultation from Echt Social to drive your brand's social media marketing to new heights, feel free to get in touch!