What is a Social Media Strategy? Easy steps to help you create one for your brand?
A social media strategy is like your business plan; it is a detailed document that contains every specific detail on what you will do for a personal or particular brand’s social media account to reach their social media goals.
A social media strategy guides each action you take on your various social media platform and help you stay on track and apply the right tactics for critical things that affect your online presence. Starbucks is one of the most successful brands on social media with an effective brand strategy.
Social media is a space that allows people, businesses, non-profit organizations and many other kinds of engagement to happened on a given platform. People use social media to connect with friends and family close and afar, learn new things, gain inspiration online, or do many other things. Businesses and organizations use social media to find and connect with their target audiences and advertise or sell their products or services.
The chances of reaching your goals on social media are easy when you have a social media strategy. Without a plan, you could be wasting time and resources online. A social media strategy is like your Google Map, that lists all the path you will take to get to your destination. As you create the plan, you will notice things you have not thought of before, and you now have the chance to put things in place to avoid mistakes and misunderstandings.
Here are nine steps in creating a social media strategy.
1. Set your business goals and objectives
Focus on the bigger picture. Why are you making all this effort? Why are you in business, or why did you create this organization? What do you aim to achieve from all this? To help you set this goal the right way, think about your organization’s mission and vision statement.
2. Create a social media goal
Use the “why” formula to set your social media goals. Why do you want to be on social media, and what do you aim to achieve on social media? Your social media goals must align with your business goals and objectives. Create a goal for each platform you desire to use. When listing your goals, ensure they are
Specific- It is simple, yet detailed and it makes sense
Measurable- To easily measure success
Attainable- Something you will be able to achieve
Realistic- You have the tools and resources to make it happend
Timely- You can perform the task at a suitable timeframe
3. Define your target audience
Social media is a space to be social, but to do so effectively, it is always best to engage with the right people. Imagine talking about corporate finance to kindergarten kids. They will most likely ignore you or fall asleep. Knowing and targeting the right audience can help you develop quality followers who will like and comment on your posts and even tag others or share your posts with other people in their circle. Know all the necessary details about your target audiences to help you locate and engage with them easily. Every platform is different and has different types of audiences. Know what kind of audience will fit your ideal platform. And also know what excites them and what problems or challenges they have to provide the right content.
4. Define your competitors
Who are the top people in your industry? What is it that they do well on social media? What kind of content do they share, and how do people respond and engage on their platform? What are they doing wrong? Study three to four of your competitor’s social media strategies as you will use them in the next step.
5. Conduct a social media audit
Now that you know what your competitors are doing, dive deep into your brand to understand it well. Do a SWOT Analysis to know your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities you can leverage, and any foreseeable threats? Do a Competitive Analysis to understand your unique selling points? Your USP sets you apart from your competitors, and you need this USP to stand out on social media. If you already had an account up and running, check insight to understand critical data.
6. Account setup and optimization
Gather all the critical information about the social media platform you aim to use. Based on your social media goals, target audience analysis and the details on your social media audit report, you should now have a good idea of what platforms would make the most sense for your brand. List the roles and responsibilities for each channel. Optimize your page using the right keywords for your audience to find you easily.
7. Build your brand identity
Your brand online should carry the exact image you have offline. Create a brand package that includes your logo, banner, brand voice and personality, colour and font. Consistent branding enables people to recognize your brand easily. You should also secure your brand’s name on every platform you aim to use, even if you are not starting on the platform right away.
8. Create the right content
Leverage your Unique Selling Point to speak to the heart of your audiences by creating the right content. Have a system in place for content creation. A good tip is to create a content pillar. A content pillar is a way to categorize your content into themes to help you easily create new content under each category. A content pillar creates consistency, allowing your audience to know what to expect from you. To make a content pillar, think about what you do better than anyone else. What are some of the unique ways you can help solve your audience’s problems or excites them? Create content that applies to each platform’s feed and story.
When you have a set theme, you can create a set of hashtags that goes along with that theme. Conduct hashtags research on keywords that will help your content gain visibility online.
Next, create a content calendar to help you plan your content weekly or monthly in advance. Decide whether you will use automation tools to send out your post or do so manually. Also, consider the time of the day that you will send out each content. Ensure you deploy good copywriting skills for your captions, photo headlines and Call to Action.
9. Test your strategy
Look and understand your metrics to see what worked and what needs improvement. It would be best to re-evaluate your strategy monthly to find the suitable method that works best for you. Assign a person to produce a monthly report to help you assess the performance and quality of your effort on each page.
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