I’ve been playing a (very small) role in training AI lately. And this is my approach: train the machine like you would a new marketer. So if you’re a new marketer, or an experienced marketer just new to social media, here are eight steps that can help you with your social media marketing.
But before we dive into those steps, I should mention that this is the way I would train someone and create social media ten years ago. While it’s still useful, marketers have a new way to train our marketing and get help: artificial intelligence.
We just released the new Social Media Pro expert assistant MECLABS AI (MECLABS AI is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa). It can help you with your social media marketing. MECLABS AI is completely free to use, you don’t even have to register (for now).
Drop-down menu Expert Assistants in MECLABS AI
And the Marketing Professor Expert Assistant can train you or someone from your team in the basics of marketing. Flint McGlaughlin explains in the video below.
That said, as an avid reader of print newspapers and magazines, I can attest that there are benefits to the old ways. If you want to learn the basics of marketing, here are some articles organized under the most important steps for social media marketing.
These articles are not about the current buzz-y trends on social media. They are intended to give you ideas and guidance on the basics of social media marketing. And since MarketingSherpa has been reporting on the marketing industry for 25 years, some of these articles are older. But they should all help you understand these important steps.
Step 1: Understand the audience’s motivation
How to use social media to increase your marketing conversion
Social Media Marketing Chart: How Many Different Age Groups Rely on Social Ads
Transparent Marketing: Social Media Marketing Research Reveals Surprising Consumer Discoveries
Step 2: Choose which social media platforms your brand should be on
Social Media Marketing: What type of content is suitable for different platforms?
Social media research graph: Most (and least) shared types of content for 11 industries
Social Media Marketing Chart: Engagement and Reach of the Top Eight Social Networks
Social Media Marketing: 4 Steps to Identifying the Ideal Social Media Platform for Your Business
Social Media 101: Branding for the PR-disabled marketer
Step 3: Create and communicate a process-level value proposition to build an audience
Social Media Marketing: Why should I like or follow you?
Social Media Marketing: 4 questions you can ask yourself about social media buttons
Social Media Marketing: 4 Tactics for Finding and Winning Hypersocial Consumers
Customer value: The 4 essential levels of value propositions
Step 4: Publish content consistently
Levels of Marketing Maturity: Examples of an AI-powered Marketing Strategy (Advanced) and Setting Up the Foundation (Fundamental) (case study #2, social media portion of that case study)
Step #5: Find the social media tactics that are most effective for your audience
Social Media Marketing: Tactics Ranked by Effectiveness, Difficulty, and Use
Social Media: Tips from Mellow Mushroom for Engaging Facebook Followers
Developing a Social Media Strategy: 6 Lessons from Kodak
Step #6: Serve your audience with customer-focused social media content
Customer-centric marketing guide: 4 steps (with case studies) to build a customer-centric marketing strategy (Step #1 in this article)
Marketing graph: The outsized impact of customer-centric marketing on word-of-mouth marketing
Customer’s Journey: A look at how three companies took a customer-centric marketing approach
Content Marketing 101: How to write compelling content in five tips
Content marketing: Strategies from companies that have improved (and replaced) digital content marketing. (Case study #1 and #2 in this article)
Step #7: Bring innovation to your social media efforts
How to use social media tactics to make your emails more engaging (technically about email, but shares good social media tactics)
Social media: how to make [the right] make friends and influence people [who matter]
Inbound Marketing: the three most important tactics from MarketingSherpa’s 2014 case studies
Step #8: Encourage and integrate user-generated content and influencers
Content Marketing: How to Use Social Media Sweepstakes to Encourage User-Generated Content
Social Media Marketing: Sporting goods company increases Facebook reach by 366% with content contest
Content Marketing: User-generated content tips from Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales
Marketing 101: What is influencer marketing?
Categories: Social media marketing artificial intelligence, social media, social media marketing
