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I’ve been playing a (very small) role in training AI lately. And here’s the approach I took – train the machine like you would a new marketer. So if you’re a new marketer, or an experienced marketer who is simply new to social media, here are eight steps that can help your social media marketing.

But before we dive into those steps, I should mention that this is how I would train someone and create social media a decade ago. While it’s still helpful, marketers have a new way to train and get help with our marketing – artificial intelligence.

We have just released the new Social Media Pro expert assistant in MECLABS AI (MECLABS AI is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa). It can help you with your social media marketing. MECLABS AI is totally free to use, you don’t even have to register (for now).

Expert Assistants drop-down menu in MECLABS AI

And the Marketing Professor expert assistant can train you or someone on your team in the marketing fundamentals. Flint McGlaughlin explains in the video below.

That said, as an avid reader of print newspapers and magazines, I can attest that there is benefit to the old ways as well. If you’re looking to learn the fundamentals of marketing, here are a bunch of articles organized under the key steps for social media marketing.

These articles aren’t about today’s buzz-y social media trends. They are meant to give you ideas and guidance for the fundamentals 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 grasp these key steps.

Step #1: Understand audience motivation

How to Use Social Media to Increase Your Marketing Conversion

Social Media Marketing Chart: How much different age groups trust social ads

Transparent Marketing: Research into social media marketing reveals surprising consumer discovery

MarketingSherpa Consumer Purchase Preference Survey: Why customers follow brands’ social accounts

Step #2: Choose which social media platforms your brand should be on

Social Media Marketing: Which type of content is appropriate for different platforms?

Social Media Research Chart: Most (and least) shared types of content for 11 industries

Social Media Marketing Chart: Engagement and reach of top eight social networks

Social Media Marketing: 4 steps to identifying the ideal social media platform for your company

Social Media 101: Branding for the PR-impaired 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 to ask yourself about social media buttons

Social Media Marketing: 4 tactics for finding and winning hyper-social consumers

Customer Value: The 4 essential levels of value propositions

Step #4: Publish content consistently

Social Media Marketing: Is it just your brand’s performance, or has something changed in social media? 

Social Media Marketing: AT&T Developer Program calendar strategy increases Twitter audience 136%, Facebook 113%

Levels of Marketing Maturity: Examples of an AI-powered marketing strategy (advanced) and just setting up the basics (foundational) (case study #2, social media section of that case study)

Step #5: Find the social media tactics that will be most effective for your audience

Social Media Marketing: Tactics ranked by effectiveness, difficulty and usage 

Social Media: Mellow Mushroom’s tips for engaging Facebook followers

Developing a Social Media Strategy: 6 Lessons from Kodak

Step #6: Serve your audience with customer-first social media content

Customer-First Marketing Guide: 4 steps (with case studies) to build a customer-first marketing strategy (Step #1 in this article)

Marketing Chart: The outsize impact of customer-first marketing on word-of-mouth

Customer’s Journey: A look at how three companies took a customer-first marketing approach

Content Marketing 101: How to write compelling content in five tips

Content Marketing: Strategies of businesses that improved (and replaced) digital content marketing (Case Study #1 and #2 in this article)

Step #7: Bring innovation into your social media efforts

How to Use Social Media Tactics to Make Your Emails More Enticing (technically about email, but shares good social media tactics)

Social Media: How to make [the right] friends and influence people [who matter]

Inbound Marketing: The top three tactics from MarketingSherpa case studies in 2014

AI Video Content Creation: High earners, millennials, and Americans are most interested in AI video generators

Step #8: Encourage and incorporate 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 366% with content contest

Content Marketing: User-generated content tips from Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia

Marketing 101: What is influencer marketing?

About Daniel Burstein

Daniel Burstein, Senior Director of Editorial Content, MECLABS. Daniel oversees all content and marketing coming from the MarketingExperiments and MarketingSherpa brands while helping to shape the editorial direction for MECLABS – digging for actionable information while serving as an advocate for the audience. Daniel is also a speaker and moderator at live events and on webinars. Previously, he was the main writer powering MarketingExperiments publishing engine – from Web clinics to Research Journals to the blog. Prior to joining the team, Daniel was Vice President of MindPulse Communications – a boutique communications consultancy specializing in IT clients such as IBM, VMware, and BEA Systems. Daniel has 18 years of experience in copywriting, editing, internal communications, sales enablement and field marketing communications.

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Categories: Social Media Marketing Tags: artificial intelligence, social media, social media marketing