Crafting a successful social media strategy is essential in today’s digital landscape.
This guide provides practical steps for developing an impactful presence on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Discover techniques for engaging content creation, audience targeting, and analytics-driven decision-making.
Elevate your social media marketing plan with tailored strategies that resonate with your audience and boost your online visibility.
Let’s dive right in!
What is a Social Media Strategy?
A social media strategy is a detailed blueprint that answers the what, when, how, and why for all the content you post on your business’s social pages.
Yes, social media strategy isn’t just about posting tweets and liking photos.
There needs to be a well-thought-out plan behind what you’re posting, and a goal that you want to achieve from it.
A social media marketing strategy, like a strategy for anything else, comes much before you start creating. It’s a plan, a mix of ideas, a purpose, and the path to a goal that you’re aiming to achieve.
Think about when you decided to create your own small business.
You don’t just open shop the next day – there’s a lot of planning, and strategizing that went behind all of it, and it’s the same with every new step you take towards building your business.
So, what is a social media strategy, and how does it boost your marketing results?
A strategy is a key ingredient of social media marketing.
It requires an understanding of your audience, what they’re looking for, how their needs align with your goals, and ultimately, how you can attract them with an offer that gets them get on board with your business.
Here are some questions to think about as you begin strategizing on potential social media campaigns:
- Who is your audience?
- How do you want your brand to be perceived?
- What kind of content will you share?
- What social platforms are you going to use?
- What are the goals, or results you want to achieve?
An important thing to understand here is that you can have multiple social media goals.
You could use various social media channels to generate more leads, share product information, increase brand awareness, expand your network, or just about anything that helps your business connect with consumers.
Additionally, you could build different strategies for different social media platforms, depending on the nature of the platform.
For example: you could use Facebook for generating new leads, Instagram for sharing visually impactful content, and YouTube for informational videos.
Why Every Business Today Needs a Social Media Strategy
Now that we understand the definition of social media strategies, you may be asking, “Why do I need it?”
Times have changed, and so have the ways we do business today. Social media platforms allow you to transcend boundaries and reach out to millions of people across the globe. If you’re a small business owner starting out with social media marketing, you need to be where your existing and potential customers are already looking for you.
Here’s what you can expect, and why you need to start thinking about a social media strategy:
Social expansion
Believe it or not, the majority of people today are on social media sites. They use it as a platform both to connect with friends and family, and to network with brands and businesses – social media networks increase communication around the world.
As a business, you have the chance to communicate with a wider audience. Research on social media usage states that some of the top reasons people go on social media is to research, socially connect, and shop.
Personalized messages
With a number of social media tools, and detailed customer insights, you can offer a highly personalized experience to your existing, and potential customers. You can study your audience data for better targeting, use analytics to create powerful social campaigns, and influence purchase decisions with personalized offers for your audience.
Focused results
Without a strategy you may find yourself actively posting on social channels, without any clear results. When you have chalked out a social media strategy, it becomes easier, and more effective, to align all your social activity with a single focused goal.
Transparency
Creating a strong social media presence, with a powerful strategy in place, allows you to build transparency.
You can’t control what people say about you on social media, but managing your social media reputation is a big part of understanding your audience, and learning from what people are saying. Interacting with your social media followers, and building transparent channels of communication, gives you better customer insights than any tool or data.
How to Start Building Your Social Media Strategies
When you start to use social media as a tool to boost your business, use this strategy framework:
Step 1. Define business goals
Decide on one goal, or multiple goals that are directly related, and chalk out a strategy around what gets you there. The whole purpose of a social media strategy is to reach your goals, so it needs to be your starting point.
Step 2. Select your target audience
A social media marketing plan works best when you know your target audience, what they’re looking for, and where to find them. Then, it’s easier to create content that speaks directly to them.
Step 3. Choose social platforms
Every social network functions differently.
You need to start choosing the media channels that work best for your audience. Your audience should also decide the kind of content you create, and the products and services you offer.
Step 4. Measure performance
The best way to know you’re on the right track, to see what strategies are working, is to measure your performance with specific social media analytics tools at every step of your campaign. Understanding customer behavior strengthens your strategy along the way.
For example, using Constant Contact for email marketing allows users to get a deeper insight into what email campaigns are working, how many people opened the email, how many took the desired action, and a lot of other information that can help create stronger emails.
Step 5. Create the right social media content
Your social media plan must include the different types of content you’re planning to create. Do you post videos? Infographics? Share links to industry studies? Again, your target audience, and the platforms you choose, should help you make this decision.
Step 6. Schedule posts
How often do you plan to post on social media?
What is the best time to post?
What social media management tool will you use?
It may not always be possible to stick to a calendar, but with the right tools, you can ensure that your social calendar is on autopilot. Creating a schedule helps you identify the gaps, so you can be better prepared to fill those in.
Common Social Media Strategy Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
From our experience, these are the the most widely spread mistakes that people make when implementing their social media strategies:
- Overlooking Platform Specifics: Different social media platforms cater to varied audiences and content styles. A common mistake is using a one-size-fits-all approach for all platforms. To avoid this, tailor your content and engagement strategies to suit each platform’s unique environment. For instance, what works on Instagram might not resonate on LinkedIn.
- Neglecting Engagement: Engagement is key in social media, yet many businesses focus solely on posting without interacting with their audience. To combat this, allocate time for responding to comments, engaging with followers’ content, and being an active community member.
- Inconsistent Posting: Irregular posting can lead to a loss of audience interest and engagement. Develop a content calendar and use scheduling tools to maintain a consistent presence. This also helps in ensuring a balanced content mix and avoiding last-minute rushes.
- Ignoring Analytics: Not leveraging the insights from social media analytics is a missed opportunity. Regularly review your analytics to understand what content performs best, the best times to post, and audience demographics. This data is crucial for refining your strategy.
Overview of 4 Platform-Specific Social Media Strategies
While the idea behind a solid strategy is being consistent on all channels with the suitable content type, there are specific strategies that you can apply to individual platforms:
- Facebook: Focus on community building and engagement. Use Facebook Groups to create a space for your audience to connect and share. Leverage Facebook Insights to understand your audience and tailor your content accordingly.
- Instagram: This is a visually-driven platform. High-quality images and videos, along with engaging stories and IGTV content, work well. Use Instagram’s shopping features for product-based businesses and leverage Instagram Reels for short, engaging content.
- LinkedIn: Ideal for B2B marketing, LinkedIn favors professional, informative content. Share industry insights, company news, and professional achievements. Engage with other professionals through thoughtful comments and posts.
- TikTok: It’s all about trending content and creativity here. Create short, captivating videos that align with trending sounds or challenges. TikTok is less about polished content and more about fun, relatable posts.
Start Strategizing to Get Your Small Business Busy on Social
Now that you know what is a social media strategy, you should go ahead and implement it. This gives your marketing efforts a sense of purpose.
Whether you’re creating new content, replying to someone, writing a caption, or creating a lead generation campaign, having well-planned social media strategies will guide you in the right direction.
You may need to tweak your social media marketing plan from time to time to keep up with the changing trends, but creating an effective social media strategy right in the beginning gives your marketing campaigns a strong foundation for boosting your business.