There’s a lot more to social media marketing than posting on Facebook or Twitter and forgetting about it once you post. Unfortunately, social media marketing is often treated as a single discipline, but it’s actually composed of four equally important parts. If successfully implemented, your efforts will be paid with increased awareness, engagement, and traffic to your website.
The Four Stages of a Successful Social Cycle
1. Social Monitoring & Listening
During this stage, you will be monitoring social media and responding to customers, while listening for important trends and topics. The goal of your social monitoring and listening is to manage your online reputation, reduce refunds, and identify product and content gaps. Some comments will be positive and you will want to respond. Some comments will be negative and you’ll have to respond immediately so people know you’re accessible. If you don’t respond, you could gain a bad reputation – but it’s also important to respond appropriately.
Social listening will also give you the insights to make decisions throughout the rest of the cycle. It’ll help drive strategy development that influences, grows your following, and ultimately leads to lots of conversions. An example of an effective way of doing this is using your Twitter account to listen to your customers needs, wants, and complaints. A simple check in on your account will provide your customer care team a pulse on your customers.
2. Social Influencing
This is the stage where you establish your authority in your industry by posting relevant content that adds value. The key here is creating content that people want to engage with. The more relevant the content, the more they will recognize your authority in the space and identify you as a valuable resource. As they continue to engage with your content, it will be shared to their networks, and your brand will extend its reach.
Key goals you’ll need to take into consideration during this stage are:
- increasing engagement like retweets or reshares
- increasing website traffic by clicking on links on social media
- recognized authority and a brand people watch
- people look to engage with you by asking you questions or opinions
- increasing offer and product awareness
- growing your retargeting lists
(Learn more about the metrics you should be measuring here).
3. Social Networking
Social networking involves building relationships with trusted influential people and brands in your industry. Create mutually beneficial relationships that allow both parties to grow. You will share valuable content from people within the industry, and even competitors. But, if it’s helpful to your audience, it’s worth sharing. As you develop these strategic relationships, you’ll notice an increase in mentions in the long run.
Another added benefit of social networking is that you will be able to share content that fills gaps left from your own content. By sharing their content, you’ll also be creating good will with brands that are similar to yours – possibly creating a relationship that can lead to a profitable partnership.
4. Social Selling
This is where you’ll be generating leads and sales by connecting a seeking audience with your products and services. Focus on engaging your audience and making sure that you speak of the benefits of what you offer. With so much noise in the digital space, you’ll want to make sure your benefits resonate with your audience. So, your social selling should focus on seeker channels where customers are actively looking for specific products and services, like Google, YouTube, or Pinterest. People will go to these channels to search for and discover content.
An example of social selling will look as follows: A lead reads a blog and you’ll embed an offer in the content. You’ll leverage social media to promote the content, directing traffic to your content where new leads see your offer. If they click to opt-in for the offer, you can immediately make an upsell offer – a low-priced product that’s designed to turn your new lead into a life-long customer. But, if they don’t opt-in, you can retarget them with ads.
To have a well-rounded social media marketing strategy, you need to understand the four stages of the social cycle to succeed. If not, there will be an imbalance that will impact your overall marketing goals and business.
What the Four Stages Look Like on a Tuesday
Theory is easy. Here is the same cycle as a 30 minute block on an ordinary weekday.
8:30. Listening, ten minutes. You read every comment and message from the last day and answer each one. You check what three of your ideal clients posted this week. One of them is complaining about a problem you solve. You write that down.
8:40. Influencing, ten minutes. You publish one post. Today it is your take on the problem you just saw, in plain words, with what you would do about it.
8:50. Networking, five minutes. You leave two real comments on posts from people your buyers already follow. A full thought each, more than "Great post".
8:55. Selling, five minutes. You message the one person who engaged with you twice this week and offer something useful. A guide, an introduction, a short call if they asked for one.
Thirty minutes. All four stages. Notice that publishing took a third of the time, and most people give it all of it.
Where the Cycle Usually Breaks
Most businesses do one stage and call it a strategy.
The most common version is all influencing. You post four times a week, nobody answers, and you never read what your buyers are saying. The fix is to spend your first ten minutes listening and let that decide what you post.
The second version is all selling. Every post is an offer. Your followers learn to scroll past. The fix is a simple ratio. For every post that asks for something, publish four or five that give something.
The third is quieter. You listen, you post, you comment, and you never make an offer because it feels pushy. Then you wonder why a busy feed produces no leads. The fix is one direct, specific invitation a week. People cannot say yes to a question you never asked.
Find your version. Most founders know which one it is the second they read the list. If you want a wider check, these are the mistakes you are probably making on social media.
One Post, Followed All the Way Through
Here is the full cycle with numbers, so you can see how small it is allowed to be.
Say you are a consultant with 1,500 LinkedIn connections. While listening, you notice three clients complaining about the same thing in one week. You write a post about it.
The post reaches 900 people. Thirty react. Eight comment. You reply to all eight, and two of those turn into a short back and forth. You message those two with a relevant guide. One books a call.
One call from one post does not sound like much. Do that every week and you have four qualified conversations a month from 30 minutes a day and zero ad spend.
The post itself was maybe a quarter of the work. The call came from the listening before it and the replies after it. That is the whole point of treating social as a cycle.
To see which numbers to watch along the way, read the social media metrics that matter.
Frequently asked questions
What is the social media success cycle? The social media success cycle is a four stage approach made up of listening, influencing, networking and selling. You pay attention to what your audience says, publish useful content, build relationships with others in your space, and make offers. Each stage feeds the next, so skipping one weakens the rest.
How do I build a social media strategy for a small business? Build a small business social media strategy by choosing one channel your buyers use and covering all four stages there each week. Read and answer comments, post something useful, comment on other people's posts, and make one specific offer. Thirty minutes a day is enough to do this well.
How do I get leads from social media without being pushy? Get leads from social media by being useful in public and specific in private. Publish four or five helpful posts for every one that asks for something. Then message people who have engaged with you more than once and offer a relevant resource or a short call.
What is the biggest mistake businesses make on social media? The biggest mistake is posting and leaving. Publishing without reading comments, replying or talking to anyone turns social media into a billboard nobody asked for. Spend at least as much time listening and responding as you spend creating posts, and results change quickly.
How do I measure social media success? Measure social media success by the conversations and leads it produces. Follower count tells you very little. Track replies and comments from your ideal buyers, clicks to your website, and calls booked from social each month. Give a consistent routine 90 days before you decide whether it is working.