Social Media Strategy Deck is packed full of useful tips and guides for establishing a coherent social media strategy for your business. Developed by the award-winning bluefrog digital team this deck sets out to answer all your questions about the world’s leading social networks and also contains insider advice on how to get the most out of each platform
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The Complete Social Media Strategy Framework
Social Media Strategy Example: What’s Included?
A social media strategy is typically presented as a text document or slide presentation.
Here’s an example agenda of what belongs in a social media strategy presentation:
1. Social Media Strategy Context (Why and What)
Set up the social media strategy by providing context on the business challenges and brand strategy already established. This is why we’re defining the social media strategy.
- Summary and agenda
- Strategic goals
- Business/comms challenges
- Brand strategy overview
2. Social Media Audience Evaluation (Who)
Define the audience(s) that will influence your strategy. Use research and examples as appropriate to make your case. Compare that with how your audience breaks down today on web and social media channels.
- Ideal client profile or audience overview
- Audience analysis snapshot – current
3. Tactical Planning & Execution (How)
Show how your social media strategy comes to life with specific recommendations.
- Strategy summary
- Channel – roles & practices
- Content framework – Topic pillars or themes
- Creative direction – concepts & examples
- Content publishing plan
- Community management practices
- Voice & tone guidelines
- Paid media – campaign breakdown
- Influencer program
- Editorial or campaign calendar
- Measurement and KPIs
- Division of responsibility
- Crawl, walk, and run plan
- Implementation steps
Keep in mind that all of these sections are optional. Your client or marketing team might prefer a 2-page summary versus a 50-page deck.
Social Media Strategy Template Example
We put together two templates that you can use to start 2021 off on the right foot.
Our template will help you clarify your social media strategy using the proven 6-step framework. Inspired by the social media strategies we build for brands at our B2B social media agency, this framework aligns teams and delivers results.
How to Use the Social Media Strategy Template
Maybe you’re thinking, “cool, this template sounds great but, it’s just another empty document. What do I put in it?”
We had a hunch you might feel that way. Keep reading for a breakdown of the six step framework and concrete examples of how to adapt these ideas into actionable strategies.
Set Energizing Goals
Like all things in business, we begin with goals. Goals come in all shapes and sizes, so let’s set some ground rules on good social goals.
What defines a good social media marketing goal?
1. Goals should be SMART. Welcome back to business basics. Your goals should follow the time-tested formula: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
2. Goals should be audience-centered. Social media is a human-centric medium. Translate your customer’s journey into audience-specific goals.
- Awareness = capturing your customer’s attention
- Conversions = driving your customer’s actions
- Advocacy = earning your customer’s referral
3. Goals should be tied to organizational impact. A good goal is an outcome, not an activity. What does the business need to happen in the next year? While top-line revenue growth is always up there, what else impacts the bottom line? Keeping customers happier? Keeping employees longer? Translate a social media goal for an area where you can move the needle.
4. Goals should start big, then break down into KPIs. To keep on track, you should establish goals that are big but achievable. Then break them down into monthly and quarterly key performance indicators (KPIs). We recommend identifying two types of goals in your planning:
- Primary goals that describe your top priority contribution to the marketing goal.
- Secondary goals that describe your objectives and success measurements for each channel.
Your primary goal is going to answer, “If we only hit this one goal this year, we’ll know we’re successful.” This is where I’m going to push you to re-think ‘increase brand awareness.’ In Buffer’s example, they connect their social media goal to the launch of three new product features. Perhaps on Jan 1 that’s enough. As they qualify the success metrics of those product launches, the social goal should break down further to be more actionable and measurable.
What’s a good B2B social media goal?
As a B2B organization, marketing is often responsible for brand awareness, demand generation, and lead nurturing (pipeline). It’s reasonable to expect your B2B social media marketing to contribute to moving the needle in the sales funnel either directly with paid advertising or indirectly through brand awareness and community management.
An example of a primary social media marketing goal might be: Acquire 50 SQLs from social media channels in FY2021.
Would your company be happy with 50 new qualified leads after a year’s worth of effort and investment? Adjust accordingly.
Note #1: This is a social media marketing goal. Social media may live within different departments and teams. Your team’s goal could relate to other areas of business impact—improving customer satisfaction scores by X percentage points, reducing response times by Y minutes, or increasing customer or employee retention rates.
Note #2: A goal for an entire year is a big, audacious guess. Instead, consider establishing goals on a campaign basis.
Next, identify your secondary social media goals. This is how we measure the success of our execution. Often, these are the metrics tied to performance on each individual channel. They are tracked as part of your execution plan on a monthly basis, for each channel. These will not be equally valued among your organization so be selective.
A few examples of social media KPIs:
- Frequency: Number of posts published
- Audience Growth: New followers and fans
- Reach: Paid and Organic (or Earned/Owned) reach and impressions
- Engagement: Interactions, video views, comments, shares
- Traffic Generation: Referrals or quality visits from social media channels
- Lead Generation: Leads generated from social media campaigns or channels
- Lead Nurturing: Visits from prospects in the nurturing funnel stage from social
- Customer Acquisition: New customers closed attributed to social media campaigns
- Customer Retention: Number of engaged members in your private Facebook Group
- Customer Support: Inquiries and tickets resolved through social channels
Remember when we talked about breaking those goals down into smaller pieces? Those 50 marketing-qualified leads won’t appear overnight. To inch closer to your total, in the month of March you might set goals such as:
- Generating X thousand 10-second views on a new marketing video
- Decreasing cost per action on retargeting ads to X dollars
- Improving conversion rate on Facebook-driven lead magnets from X to Y%
There’s only one way to eat an elephant: One bite at at time. Start big, then break down small.
To recap: First, you need to identify…
- A primary goal: If we only hit this one goal this year, we’ll be successful.
- Secondary goals: This is how we measure the performance of our execution.
Then, ask yourself and key members of your organization:
- Are these tied to our most important business goals of the year?
- Are they SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound)?
- Does leadership support the decision to focus on these goals?
- Have we identified the KPIs that will help us measure our progress towards these goals?
Identify Business Goals
Every piece of your social media strategy serves the goals you set. You simply can’t move forward without knowing what you’re working toward.
Look closely at your company’s overall needs and decide how you want to use social media to contribute to reaching them.
You’ll undoubtedly come up with several personalized goals, but there are a few that all companies should include in their strategy—increasing brand awareness, retaining customers and reducing marketing costs are relevant to everyone.
I suggest you choose two primary goals and two secondary goals to focus on. Having too many goals distracts you and you’ll end up achieving none.
Establish Your Social Media Goals
In this step, you’ll make a list of social media goals that align with your overall business goals.
Why are you investing time and money into social media marketing?
You might be tempted to congratulate your team and celebrate as you watch your follower counts grow.
But, more followers don’t always equal more profits.
And let’s face it, selling more products is why brands invest their time and money into social media in the first place.
How are you going to use social media in a way that ultimately increases revenue for your business?
The top social media goals brands focus on in 2021:
- Engagement
- Audience growth
- Brand awareness
- On-platform sales
- Leads and conversions
- Sales
- Customer service
- Increased web traffic
- Leads and conversions
Conclusion
The Social Media Strategy Deck is a visual and easy way to develop a social media strategy for your business (or even use it to refresh an existing strategy). It breaks down the five components of a social media strategy into what we call The Five P’s of a Winning Strategy.