Having a Social Media Strategy Is the best strategy.

May 13, 2021 by Edwin Gerace

The reason why Social Media Digital Strategy is Important

Nowadays, digital marketing is a very important aspect of business, but just like everything else in the world it keeps constantly changing and evolving, using different strategies that take advantage of all the new tools available. Digital marketing is very important, because with that; you can reach a huge audience very fast in a way that is both measurable and cost-effective. 

Some benefits of using digital marketing are:

• You can save more money than with traditional methods
• You can get to know your audience
• You can track responses
• You can reach a global marketplace
• You can interact with your prospects

And that is where Social Media Marketing is born, becoming one of the most used and yet most important branches of the digital marketing world. Social Media Marketing is basically the use of social media platforms to connect with your audience to build a brand, increase sales, and if it is the case, also drive website traffic. The main social media platforms at the moment are TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

But these may change since new platforms are being launched to the market every day. A clear example of this is TikTok. Even though is a new platform, it was the most downloaded app in 2020 and it reported more than 689 million active users in January of 2021.

Need for a Social Media Plan

The list of reasons why an effective social media marketing strategy or plan is necessary is endless and keeps growing daily, but let’s mention just some of them:

• Customers are active on social media: The most you connect with your audience, the more likely you are to have new customers. Technology has developed an atmosphere of easy access and use for people, allowing them to exchange information in their own terms and conditions, so deciding how to relate to a customer, requires strategic thinking.
• Build Brand Awareness: Social media accounts for your brand will be helpful for your brand when used daily, being able to generate a large audience for your business in no time. This kind of channel makes it easier for a customer to find you and communicate with you, increasing their satisfaction and their royalty.
• Give room for innovation: A plan that’s consistent with the objectives of your business will make easier the process of building and creating content that resonates with your audience, giving you the chance to refine the quality of the material and think in a creative yet effective social post. You can include interactive resources available to generate more engagement with your audience.
• Engagement: Social media opens a dialogue for quick relationship building and customer loyalty. It’s critical to design and establishes new ways to communicate with your audience, so they get to feel more and more involved.

Why a Content Calendar for Social is important

The content calendar is the most common, used, and effective tool that can help you when you are creating or establishing a strategy.

This will help you plan ahead of the content and the post you will be publishing on social media. It may sound a bit overwhelming at first, but organizing your content is key when designing a social media marketing strategy, and will bring you tons of benefits. Let’s not freak out planning your content does not have to be rocket science and you can do it from the easiest way, which is through the use of templates available online or designing from scratch.

One of the benefits of using a content calendar for your brand is that it’ll help to post constantly, due there’s no other option to growing organically on social media than being constant, keeping your brand giving the customers content they can consume and interact with. As obvious as it may seem, another perk is the time you’ll be saving when defining things in advance, this will also allow you to post better content on your accounts since you’ll have the time to talk and don’t miss out on important events.

But most importantly, a content calendar will help you check the content and quality of the information you’re constantly giving to the people, so you can make sure it fits and helps your brand to accomplish the desired goal, matching with the social media strategy you’ve designed.

Success as a plan

There are multiple reasons why you need a social media marketing plan, but it’s important to mention that, without it, you and your team will find themselves posting information with no particular order, giving a messy first impression of your business.

A huge part of designing and defining your marketing strategy on social media is to know which platforms you’re going to be using, according to the results you want for your brand. It’s important to know this because a brand can have a presence on every platform, or either you can define and select just a few of them.

Choosing a platform, or many of them will have much to do with the target you want to reach with your brand. Accordingly, to the blog HubSpot, there around 1.3 million new social media users daily around the world, yet Facebook teenagers’ user’s percentage of users dropped to 67% in 2015, since this target is moving to platforms like TikTok or Instagram. Around 61% of TikTok users age are between 16 and 24. 

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin

Whether you are just starting out your business or you want to expand and grow, you must have a plan. Your marketing calendar, digital plan, your campaign strategy are your blueprint for success. You must be willing to have a plan that is either 3 months or 6 months or 12 months. Then you need to evaluate those plan’s success. By having a plan you are creating goals that you can achieve.

A huge part of designing and defining your marketing strategy on social media is to know which platforms you’re going to be using, according to the results you want for your brand. It’s important to know this because a brand can have a presence on every platform, or either you can define and select just a few of them.

Set your goals out of reach but not out of sight.

By Edwin Gerace

Leadership and Groups

February 1, 2021 by Edwin Gerace

Where is your tribe? Who is in your tribe?

A Group is a voluntary combination of two or more people. There are three distinct types of Groups that are relevant to the QSource: communities, organizations and teams.

F3 Q Source

We naturally want to be surrounded by people we like and trust. We gravitate to groups for security and confidence.

To read more about Groups and Leadership

Attention men, if you are interested in growing your friendships or physical strength or growing your faith there is a solution. F3 can help you encompass all of that. F3 is a national network including 2,436 free, peer-led workouts for men. Our mission is to plant, grow and serve small workout groups for men for the invigoration of male community leadership. If you are in the Midlands of South Carolina visit F3 Lexington.

Twitter with Giraffe Marketing Agency

November 19, 2020 by Edwin Gerace

Choosing to use twitter as a marketing strategy gives your business a number of marketing advantages. With this decision, your company now has the ability to plan, create, and share content relevant to your business and engage with a new customer base. By generating engaging post, you provide the opportunity for open dialogue on your business ideas and concepts. Learn more about Twitter with Giraffe Marketing Agency below.

Why Twitter is considered a great social media tool:

• This social media, unlike others, is free to use
• This strategy provides ease of use and access with availability on any smart device (smart phone or tablet) and a computer.
• Twitters platform allows its users to post numerous types of content from blogs and news articles to images and videos.
• Twitter is available worldwide, this means you are able to reach an audience outside the US with little to no effort.
• Twitter can be used as a search engine
• This platform is designed for social engagement allowing you to converse with current and future consumers.

Twitter consumers are your consumers:

• Over 30 million people use twitter every month
• Roughly 20% of the adults in the US are users on this platform
• Over 30% of the users say they can recall something they saw on Twitter
• In excess of 50% of all Twitter users take action after seeing a brand mentioned

Using Twitter to grow your business:

• Daily Tweets
• Repost, Tweet and Retweet
• Know which hashtags(#) to use and use them properly
• Follow reliable and relevant persons to help build connections
• Follow mutual friends, this will allow like-minded individuals access to your posts
• Do not post spam items. Only post items relevant to your business ideas or trends. If you begin posting spam you will lose the attention of your audience.
• If you find posts interesting then be sure to comment or retweet them, this will make your account visible to those with similar interests and ideas.
• Be sure to provide a Twitter bio on your account, this will allow your consumers an insight into who you are and what you provide, even if it is brief.
• Be sure to link your Twitter account to all of social media and web accounts you may have, visibility is key.

Tweets by EdwinGerace

I would encourage you to follow me on Twitter @GiraffeMarketingLLC . Learn more about Twitter with Giraffe Marketing Agency.

Twitter with Giraffe Marketing Agency

Understanding Social Media

November 2, 2020 by Edwin Gerace

Social Media

Social media are interactive computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation or sharing of information, ideas, career interests, and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks.^[1][2] The variety of stand-alone and built-in social media services currently available introduces challenges of definition; however, there are some common features.

– Wikipedia

Why should your business integrate social media into their marketing campaigns?

3.5 billion. The amount of social media users in the world. Social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are an integral part of our society. Facebook controls nearly 60% of the social media world with 1.7 billion daily users. This is 1.7 billion potential clients waiting for new products and ideas to be presented to them. So why is it important to get your business on these platforms? Visibility. “I saw it on Facebook.” “Yeah, there was an ad for it on Instagram”.  These comments are said daily about any given product because they had the visibility that a social media marketing strategy provided. of that conversation.

Where do you start with Social Media ?

In order to begin your social media campaign, you must first know your marketing audience. Social platforms like Instagram and TikTok are aimed at a younger (teens to mid-twenties) audience while Facebook and Twitter are aimed at an older (mid- twenties and up) audience.  With your audience in mind you can select the social media platform that will cater best to that audience.   From there, you can create engaging and creative content targeted to that specific audience group

You must choose the correct type of social media

There are varying social media categories or networks within the digital media world. Social, media based, discussion forums, blogging and social shopping are only a few of the networks offered. Social networks focus on connecting people with similar interest and likes and allow communication through messaging and comments while discussion forums are designed solely around people engaging in forums and discussion chains. Each of these digital networks is designed for a specific use and that networks use should be considered when you are deciding on your marketing strategy.

The largest of these networks is social followed closely behind media; these networks should be your primary focus when selecting and creating a digital marketing strategy designed for social media. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are the best social networks to launch your social media campaign with. These social media networks work more diligently to actively connect consumers with brands and content that work best for their needs and wants.   Your secondary focus should be media sharing networks, these would include networks such as Instagram and Youtube. Because the primary goal of media networks is to share media, this is your chance to share images, videos and any other online media that is creative and engaging. You can truly captivate your audience in seconds.

All of the most popular social media platforms have their specifics designs and all of these can be useful in promoting in your business. See below how these platforms everyday uses can be helpful for your business.

•  Twitter allows you to tweet just like everyone else….or not.  On the business side of things your tweets are indexed, you can target key words and determine a key audience while paying for a better performance. See below for data.
• Instagram is owned by Facebook and is one of the fastest growing social networks This site is built for engagement. You can create stories, post images and interact with consumers. See below for data.

• LinkedIn is used to connect businesses not only to each other but to employees and consumers. It is very business centric and highly creditable. 
• Facebook is still one of the largest social networks. With Facebook you can target your ads, you have options with advanced or simple ad solutions, ads are easy to set up. You can measure your success and you can control your budget and make adjustments as needed.

If you’re not already using these social networks as part of your social media marketing plan or you are considering a social media marketing strategy, you should get a free digital audit by clicking here.

Using social media to market your business is no different than any other strategy as long as it is done correctly. You must do your research. Know your audience, know the network you wish to market on and above all be sure this is the strategy you wish to undergo. Make sure you seek professional help, if not Giraffe Marketing LLC, then an agency that fits your business needs.  Secondly, ensure you have a clear marketing plan that lays out the goals of your campaign. Lastly be sure to monitor and adjust as needed. As with any marketing campaign, social media campaigns need constant attention and adjustments to ensure you are reaching your desired audience and gaining consumer retention. There are millions of eyes scanning the internet looking at you, make sure you align yourself with a professional that can walk with you during your social media journey.

For a FREE Social Media evaluation please call Edwin at 803-609-7653 or email him Edwin@GiraffeMarketingllc.com