Social media has become a huge part of how people interact with brands and businesses today. In fact, according to a recent report from the marketing firm BCO, 64% of adults use social media to learn about new products, services, and companies—and 66% of them trust recommendations from friends and influencers as much as personal recommendations. To compete in this environment and reach your target audience effectively, you need a social media strategy. But creating an effective strategy isn’t easy. Most businesses struggle to develop one that fits their unique needs and goals—but it’s crucial to have a great strategy in place if you want your presence on social media to be effective and impactful. In this blog post, we’ll go over everything you need to know about developing a social media strategy—including why it’s important, what makes for a good social media strategy, how to develop one for your business, and examples of different strategies from real-life businesses.
What is a social media strategy?
A social media strategy is a plan that outlines your goals, targets, and tactics for using social media to promote and grow your business. It helps you to decide which platforms to use, post types to focus on, and how to engage with followers. By taking the time to develop a strategy, you’ll be able to maximize the time and energy you put into social media to grow your brand, expand your reach, and generate more sales. The basic idea behind social media is to create content that people want to engage with—by commenting, liking, or sharing it. With a good strategy, you can use social media to turn those interactions into leads, customers, and sales.
Why is developing a social media strategy important?
A lot of businesses overlook the importance of social media and fail to create a strategy for using it. This can lead to missed opportunities, poor engagement, and low conversions. In fact, nearly four out of five marketers say social media is important for their business, but only one third of those same marketers say they have a documented strategy for using it. If you want to get the most out of social media, you need to have a strategy in place. This will help you to find the optimal times to post, the best type of content to share, and the best way to engage with followers. It’ll also help you to create a consistent brand experience across all of your social media platforms so that your followers know exactly what to expect every time.
The basics of developing a social media strategy
First and foremost, you need to decide what your goals are for using social media. What do you want to accomplish with the different platforms? Do you want to generate leads? Sell products? Drive awareness? If you’re struggling to decide on goals, take a look at your business overall. What areas could you use an extra boost in? Which social media platforms make the most sense for your business? What do your competitors do on social media? Next, you need to understand your audience and what they’re after. Where do they spend most of their time online? What are they reading? What are they talking about? What do they expect from your brand? By getting a clear understanding of your audience, you can create more targeted and effective content that resonates with them. You can also create a more targeted social media strategy that fits your audience’s needs and interests.
1. Find out what’s currently working (and what’s not)
When developing your strategy, it’s important to take a look at what’s currently working and what isn’t. This will allow you to find patterns and figure out what types of posts work best and under what circumstances. For example, you might notice that social media posts that are created during lunch time tend to get a lot more engagement than those that are posted during the evening. By paying attention to the data, you can create a more tailored strategy that better fits your audience’s needs and preferences. You can use social media analytics tools to track information like how many people are engaging with your posts, where they’re located, and which types of posts are working best for you. You can also use this information to see which types of posts aren’t working well and eliminate them from your strategy.
2. Define your audience and your desired outcome for them
To create the best social media strategy, you need to know exactly who your audience is and what they want from your brand. In order to do this, you need to create an audience profile. By taking the time to figure out who your target audience is, you can create a better, more effective social media strategy that resonates with your followers and gets them interested in your brand. It’ll also allow you to tailor your content to suit their tastes and preferences. Next, you need to define what you want your audience to get out of engaging with your brand on social media. Do you want to build brand awareness? Drive sales? Generate leads? By having a clear understanding of your desired outcome, you can create a more effective social media strategy that will drive results.
3. Decide on the platforms you want to use
Once you’ve taken the time to understand your audience and the desired outcome they want from your brand, you need to decide on the platforms you want to focus your efforts on. Depending on what type of business you run, certain platforms might make more sense for you than others. For example, if you run a restaurant or food truck, you might want to focus on visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest. If you run a B2B business, you might want to focus on platforms like LinkedIn. There’s no right or wrong way to approach this. It all comes down to which platforms make the most sense for your business and what you think will work best for you. By taking the time to figure out which platforms you want to use and why, you can create a more effective social media strategy that’s tailored to your needs and goals.
4. Decide on your tactics
Once you’ve decided on the platforms you want to use, you also need to decide on your tactics. What does your social media presence look like? What type of content will you be posting? How will you be posting it? What time of day will you be posting? What type of content will you be sharing? How will you be engaging with your followers?
Summing up
Social media is an incredibly valuable platform that can help your business grow and expand its reach—but only if you have a social media strategy in place. A good strategy will help you maximize your time and energy, create a consistent brand experience, and generate more leads, sales, and customer engagement. To create a successful social media strategy, you need to first understand your audience and find out what they want from your brand. Next, you need to decide on the platforms you want to use and create a consistent brand experience across all of your platforms. Finally, you need to decide on your tactics and create a strategy that fits your needs and meets your goals.