Build a Solid Social Media Strategy
You've probably heard the old adage about business and life, "You can't manage what you don't measure." It's just as true for social media. If you can't measure performance, you're shooting in the dark. You might get lucky, but most of the time luck is a poor substitute for strategy. This guide will provide some tips, tricks, and tools to help you build a solid social media strategy that helps your company meet its goals through social media channels.
Start with a plan – not just a goal.
Before you begin to create a social media strategy, it's important to understand that not all goals are created equal. It's essential to start with a plan and not just an end goal in mind. A plan provides structure and guidance as you set out on your digital marketing journey.
A goal is something specific you want to achieve from your efforts; it's a destination or destination point - in this case, having more followers on Twitter. A plan is what helps get you there: how many daily posts do we need? What type of content should we create? How many ads should we run?
Define a strategy, create success metrics and get buy-in from stakeholders.
Define the problem before starting on a solution. While it's important to consider what others are doing, don't forget to focus on your own goals and objectives first.
Set ambitious, but realistic goals.
Be sure to get buy-in from stakeholders at all levels of the organization (e.g., CEO, managers).
Define your audience segments.
You have to know who your audience is and where they are located. The more you know about them, the better equipped you’ll be to engage them on social media. You need to think about:
Age
Gender
Location
Interests (what they like)
Determine your budget.
You can never have enough money, right? Well, not really. But it's important to determine your budget so that you can create a solid strategy and know what kind of results you can expect from it in the long run.
This is especially true if you're new to social media or are just getting started with a new business venture—you'll want to make sure that whatever time and money you spend on social media will pay off in some way by helping grow your audience and generate leads for sales in the future.
Conduct an audit of your current social presence and activity.
There are several steps you can take to conduct an audit of your current social media presence, including:
Analyze your current social media presence. Take some time to look at each of your company's social accounts and determine what they're doing well and where there is room for improvement.
Look for gaps in your social media presence. What are the major platforms that are currently missing from your online marketing strategy? Do any of them have a significant user base or potential reach? Are any of these platforms actively used by customers who could be interested in what you have to offer?
Look for opportunities to improve your social media presence. If you find that one or more platforms have been overlooked during the last few years, now might be a good time to consider adding them as part of an ongoing digital strategy—especially since doing so will provide new avenues through which users can engage with each other and learn more about whatever it is that you do as an organization (which is always helpful when trying to attract new talent).
Create a content calendar or editorial calendar (or both).
A content calendar is a document that details what you plan to post on each social platform in the upcoming month. It's helpful because it lets you see what you've posted in the past, and it allows you to plan ahead while avoiding overlap between platforms.
An editorial calendar, on the other hand, details what you or your team will post during a certain period (the week or month). This helps ensure everyone is working on new projects instead of re-posting old ones and gives everyone ownership over their work.
Analyze the data you have at your disposal.
The first step to building a solid social media strategy is to analyze the data you already have at your disposal.
Review the following:
Social platforms you currently use (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram)
The content and images on those platforms
The posts that are most successful in terms of engagement and reach
Analyze the following:
What kind of content do people like? Is it information-based, or did they respond well to photos and videos? If so, what kind of photos or videos produced better results than others? On which platform(s) did they perform best? Do certain topics resonate with customers more than others (i.e., seasonal topics — holiday gift ideas in December; fashion tips for springtime)? How can you improve upon this information moving forward?
Gather competitive intelligence on social media.
Gathering competitive intelligence is an important step in building a solid social media strategy. You can gather information by:
Looking at your competitors' social media accounts, including their content and engagement levels.
Searching for keywords related to your business or industry on Google and seeing what pops up. This will help you build a list of potential competitors, who may be operating in different niches.
Identify which social platforms make the most sense for your business based on where you customers are spending their time online and what goals you want to achieve through social media marketing.
Social media is a powerful tool for businesses to connect with customers. It's a great way to reach your audience, interact with them and collect data that can be used to build your brand. Social media marketing also helps you create content that resonates with your audience, encourages them to share it and boosts the visibility of your brand on other platforms.
One of the most important steps in creating an effective social media strategy is knowing which platforms make sense for your business based on where your customers are spending their time online and what goals you want to achieve through social media marketing.
Plan out your ad strategy across those platforms by allocating budget to each platform.
Allocate budget to each platform.
Determine which platforms to focus on and how much to spend on each platform.
Determine how you're going to allocate your budget across the different platforms.
Before you can launch a successful social media marketing campaign, it's essential to create a solid foundation for your brand on social media
There are countless examples of brands that have successfully used social media to build their business, gain more customers and increase their market share. It's a great way to spread the word about your product or service and can even help you generate sales leads.
However, before you can launch a successful social media marketing campaign, it's essential to create a solid foundation for your brand on social media. This includes creating an effective strategy that covers all aspects of the social media landscape—not just what posts you're going to publish but also how often they'll be published, who will publish them and where they will appear (e.g., Facebook or Twitter).
Conclusion
We hope that this article has provided you with some useful tips and guidance for building a solid social media strategy. Remember to always keep your audience in mind when deciding on social platforms, making posts, and responding to comments. If you do everything we’ve mentioned here, you’ll be well on your way toward creating and maintaining a strong social presence for yourself (and your company)!