A lot of time is being spent on social media these days, and your business needs to be a part of that. However with all the interactive activities available it’s hard to know where to start. Well you could use our free electronic Social Media Strategy Tool that will take you step-by-step through the process!
You can use a variety of different social media outlets to engage your audience and spread your word. We’ll help you choose the right networks for connecting with your target market. We’ll walk you through setting up profiles, creating content for each of your channels, implementing ideas for reach and engagement, and communicating effectively using text-based versus visual mediums. You’ll also learn how to develop a strategy that’s built to last.
How to create a social media marketing strategy
Choose social media marketing goals that align to business objectives
Set S.M.A.R.T. goals
The first step to creating a winning strategy is to establish your objectives and goals. Without goals, you have no way to measure success and return on investment (ROI).
Each of your goals should be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
This is the S.M.A.R.T. goal framework. It will guide your actions and ensure they lead to real business results.
Here’s an example of a S.M.A.R.T. goal:
“We will use Twitter for customer support and lower our average response rate to under two hours by the end of the quarter.”
Track meaningful metrics
Vanity metrics like number of followers and likes are easy to track, but it’s hard to prove their real value. Instead, focus on things like engagement, click-through, and conversion rates.
For inspiration, take a look at these 19 essential social media metrics.
You may want to track different goals for different social media networks, or even different uses for each network.
For example, if you use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your website, you would measure click-throughs. If Instagram is for brand awareness, you might track the number of Instagram Story views. And if you advertise on Facebook, cost-per-click (CPC) is a common success metric.
Social media goals should align with your overall marketing objectives. This makes it easier to show the value of your work and secure buy-in from your boss.
Start developing a successful social media marketing plan by writing down at least three goals for social media.
Learn everything you can about your audience
Create audience personas
Knowing who your audience is and what they want to see on social media is key. That way you can create content that they will like, comment on, and share. It’s also critical if you want to turn social media followers into customers for your business.
When it comes to your target customer, you should know things like:
- Age
- Location
- average income
- Typical job title or industry
- Interests
- etc.
Here’s a simple guide and template for creating audience/buyer personas.
Get to know your fans, followers, and customers as real people with real wants and needs, and you will know how to target and engage them on social media.
Gather data
Don’t make assumptions. Think Facebook is a better network for reaching Baby Boomers than Millennials? Well, the numbers show that Facebook’s largest age demographic is actually 30-49.
Social media analytics can also provide a ton of valuable information about who your followers are, where they live, and how they interact with your brand on social media. These insights allow you to refine your strategy and better target your audience.
Jugnoo, an Uber-like service for auto-rickshaws in India, used Facebook Analytics to learn that 90% of their users who referred other customers were between 18- and 34-years-old, and 65% of that group was using Android. They used that information to target their ads, resulting in a 40% lower cost per referral.
Check out our guide to using social media analytics and the tools you need to track them.
Get to know your competition
Odds are your competitors are already using social media, and that means you can learn from what they’re doing.
Conduct a competitive analysis
A competitive analysis allows you to understand who the competition is and what they’re doing well (and not so well). You’ll get a good sense of what’s expected in your industry, which will help you set social media targets of your own.
It will also help you spot opportunities.
Maybe one of your competitors is dominant on Facebook, for example, but has put little effort into Twitter or Instagram. You might want to focus on the networks where your audience is underserved, rather than trying to win fans away from a dominant player.
Use social media listening
Social listening is another way to keep an eye on your competitors.
Do searches of the competition’s company name, account handles, and other relevant keywords on social media. Find out what they’re sharing and what other people are saying about them.
Pro tip: Use a social media management tool like Hootsuite to set up listening streams to monitor relevant keywords and accounts in real-time.
As you track, you may notice shifts in the way channels are used. Or, you might spot a specific post or campaign that really hits the mark—or totally bombs.
Use this kind of intel to inform your own social media marketing strategy.
Why does your business want to be on social media?
The very first question to answer is the Why.
This relates to your social media goals. Are you on social media to promote your products? To drive traffic to your website? Or to serve your customers?
In general, there are the nine social media goals you can have:
- Increase brand awareness
- Drive traffic to your website
- Generate new leads
- Grow revenue (by increasing signups or sales)
- Boost brand engagement
- Build a community around your business
- Provide social customer service
- Increase mentions in the press
- Listen to conversations about your brand
You’ll likely have more than one social media goal, and that’s fine.
Generally, it’s great to focus on just a handful of goals unless you have a team, where different people or groups within the team can take on different goals.
For example, at Buffer, the marketing team uses social media both to increase our brand awareness and drive traffic to our content while our Advocacy team uses social media to provide timely customer support.
Pick the right communication channels.
Social media is so much more than just Facebook. When choosing the best platforms for your business, you should look at the benefits of each and every one of them. Basically, the aim is to choose the social networks that are used by your target audience the most and suit your brand’s image at the same time. Once you decide which platforms you’re going to include in your social media strategy, it’s time to plan a social media marketing plan for every social network.
- Be where your target group is. That doesn’t necessarily have to be Facebook or Instagram – you can find your target audience on other social networks as well. Check out some of the other most popular social media platforms in 2021 worldwide such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, YouTube, or even Quora.
- Get familiar with the requirements and unique features of each platform. For example, some social networks offer live video streaming options, while others let you make good use of groups,
- Once you have finished creating a social media plan, set up the “missing” accounts and improve your existing profiles.
Conclusion
Social Media Strategy Overview is designed to be a free guide for companies who are new to social media marketing. It covers the advantages of social networking sites and why you should use them, and provides you with a step by step plan on how to get started in social media marketing.