I’ve heard, “Strategy is easy, it’s all about execution.”
Ha!
Strategy is not easy. There are plenty of examples of bad ideas, misinformed or misguided assumptions, out-of-touch executives…
Strategy is hard, execution is hard. You need both.
You can have the world’s best execution, but if you don’t have the right strategy, it won’t matter.
Imagine having the world’s best racecar, but when you show up on race day, you discover the race is across the desert. Best vehicle, wrong environment. This can happen in business as well.
Right execution, wrong strategy.
So while you are strategizing, consider how you are going to execute as well. Not only at a high level, but at a high frequency.
In this post, I will give you:
- A free social media strategy
- Several examples of effective (viral) social media videos
- A step-by-step guide to running an effective influencer marketing campaign
53M and Counting!
How did this creator get 53.2M views on a single video?
She told a story.
She brought us into a super relatable scenario with universal appeal, made us feel some kind of way about it, and gave us a ‘promise of a payoff’.
This is how you hook, retain, and deliver a fun storytelling experience.
Free Lawn Care
SB Mowing spends all day mowing people’s lawns for free, usually people who wouldn’t otherwise being able to afford to hire him.
It’s not easy work.
Had he charged for this work, maybe he would get a few hundred dollars per job.
But, by doing it for free and posting on TikTok, he amasses millions of views, likely netting him several thousands of dollars per job.
Not only is this a great example of storytelling marketing, a showcase of the power of social media marketing, it’s an outside-the-box business model.
Giving something away for free and filming it, may be more valuable than charging for the thing.
Something worth considering for your business.
Why this works
- People love feelgood stories – doing something for the less fortunate warms our hearts.
- The videos are filmed in time-lapse so they have a 3-act story structure – we want to see how it turns out and the owners’ reactions.
- There is something oddly satisfying about watching something go from messy to clean.
This TikToker went viral by creating an clever hook. Here’s what happened:
👉 She asks her husband for a Prada bag.
👉 The husband replies, ‘if your post gets 50k likes and Prada comments, then I’ll buy it.’
👉 The post blows up getting over 1.4M likes, and Prada comments!
It would do so much good PR for Prada to hook this lady up.
- Fly her and her boyfriend to New York
- Put her up in the The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C.
- Take her to Prada and let her pick out some items
- Film the entire thing
- Post it on social
- Everyone feels good and becomes fans of Prada
This is storytelling marketing!
Continue Reading: The Power of Social Listening
Free Social Media Strategy
Looking to build your social media strategy for your business, consider this free social strategy you can use. Of course, this is not a compete strategy doc, but it should help you get started. If you’re looking for more info, please see the related content below, or contact us.
👉 Think about your brand. What do you stand for? What is your brand about if you can’t talk about, or show, your product? Once you identify what is core to your brand, create 3-4 content pillars, and go deep on each pillar.
👉 Think video-first. Other mediums are important, but they are secondary. Creating compelling video is an art form that takes a lot of practice. You also need to be well-versed at editing, sound, framing, lighting, pacing…
👉 Think about the story. How do I hook the viewer? How can I make this more interesting? How do I make them emotionally invested? How do I deliver a payoff?
👉 Increase your posting frequency. If you post 3 times per week, how can you increase that to 80 times per week? Of course, do what you can, but the more you post, the more ‘at-bats’ you have to hit a homerun, and you will develop your skills faster.
👉 Social media is not an afterthought that you hire a part-time intern to do. Make it a priority! It requires a team of skilled and socially obsessed people working full-time. It’s the most cost-effective way to scale a business in the digital age.
👉 Social media is equal parts consuming as it is posting. You need to know what is contextually relevant to post on each platform, you need to understand and shift with the ever-changing trends and what people are paying attention to, and you need to listen to what people are saying.
👉 Adapt. As with evolution, survival goes to the species who is best able to adapt to changing environments. If something isn’t working, pivot. It most likely means you aren’t posting good enough content, you aren’t posting consistently enough, and not enough time has passed.
Influencer Marketing Step-by-Step Guide
Here are the basics of what you need to know about influencer marketing:
1. Find micro-influencers (10-50k) in your niche.
2. DM them saying something like, “Hey, we want to give you a free license for our software.” or “Hey, we want to give you something for free.”
Note: You are NOT paying them. The goal is to have them fall in love with your product / platform so they use it or talk about it organically in a video. There are plenty of influencers willing to do it for free. This is a numbers game.
3. When they respond, get them set up. Try to build a relationship with them so that you can go back to them in the future.
4. Send 10 – 25 DMs per day.
5. Create a spreadsheet to keep track of everyone you’ve messaged and when, whether they’ve responded, the status of the giveaway, whether they posted about your product, links to their social accounts, etc. You’ll also want to create a scoring system so you know who are your VIPs, and who ghosted or never posted, etc.
6. You can also mix in paid ads, SEO, social… (whatever else you want to do) It all works together to help get your brand out there to the right people.
That’s it.
DM me if you’d like a copy of the spreadsheet template I use.
Related Reading: How to Build a TikTok Strategy
- Related post: The T-Shirt Theory of Branding
- Related post: The Power of Branding: John’s Family Premium Organic Garlic
- Related post: Why You Don’t Want to Run a Business that Relies Solely on Ads
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