LSI terms: social platforms, online engagement, community management
When you are thinking about social media marketing for Dallas customers, choosing from the range of social media platforms needs a bit of strategy. It begins with understanding the local market behavior. As per the Consumer Trust Study, 72% of consumers trust local businesses they follow on social media. Let’s walk you through the steps, from platform selection to measuring the success of your content strategy.
Selecting a Social Media Platform
Different social platforms attract different types of audiences. LinkedIn is best for B2B companies, Instagram appeals to younger audiences, and Facebook is excellent for reaching a broad, diverse audience.
Further, industry also plays a part. In my experience, knowledge-driven businesses such as manufacturing, law, or healthcare prefer LinkedIn, whereas visual-driven businesses like fashion, real estate, or travel prefer Instagram or Facebook.
For professional-looking visuals and quality content, you need content and design expertise. Not to forget, the right marketing toolkit. This includes design tools like Canva, Adobe Illustrator, and content management systems (CMS) for creating and scheduling posts.
Also, evaluate the platforms based on the returns. Facebook’s targeted ads can be effective, but they come at a cost, and so does Instagram influencer marketing.
Building an Effective Social Media Content Strategy
It all comes down to how you engage your local Dallas audiences.
Use a mix of post types, such as videos, promotional posts, educational content, polls, and even seasonal posts. Leverage what is happening in Dallas to make your posts relevant.
Remember, every content piece must carry your brand voice.
At the end of the day, if you haven’t engaged the audience, it doesn’t count. Use polls and quizzes, offer giveaways for specific user actions, bring relevance by connecting content to local places, collaborate with local Dallas influencers, etc.
When to post? Every platform has specific times when the audiences are most active, e.g. weekday lunch hours for LinkedIn. Use platform analytics or special tools like Sprout Social to get this information.
Many businesses prefer hiring a Dallas digital marketing consultant for expert strategy and fine execution.
Engaging the Local Community
Here are some ways to go about it:
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Participate in local events and social causes, highlight interactions with local customers, and build trending local hashtags. Of course, connect this to your business offerings.
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Reach local audiences by using Dallas-related geotags. Include localized hashtags such as #DallasBusiness, #DallasRealEstate, etc.
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Community management is another way to stay engaged and build relations with audiences.
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Get local influencers to speak about your offerings. Social platforms like Instagram allow you to mark collaborations in posts, which means double the reach.
Measuring Success and Optimizing Efforts
For the success of your marketing efforts, I insist on having a robust measurement and optimization framework. Here are some important steps:
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Setting KPIs – Depending on your goal, set the key performance indicators to track. E.g. if you are looking for higher online engagement, track comments, and likes.
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Setting Up Analytics Tools – Start with free, but later invest in a good analytics tool for tracking social media performance. Google Analytics, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social are some tools that can help you with this.
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Adjusting Strategy – Once you are equipped with data such as conversion rate, engagement rate, clicks, likes, comments, etc., you will know whether your strategy works or not. Adjust the strategy, such as reallocation of resources, change in posting schedule, more effective content, and so on.
Often, businesses don’t see the results they want from their marketing agency. I have helped many such businesses with agency performance evaluation and then provided recommendations to increase the marketing ROI. If this seems useful to you, let’s connect.
Local often equates to trust and familiarity. Not surprisingly, local content generates 2.7x higher engagement (source: Content Marketing Institute), and 67% of consumers trust locally-focused content (source: Consumer Trust Survey). So, let’s get into some specifics on local content strategy for big wins.
