Many businesses find social media overwhelming — there are so many platforms available, and they are always adding new features for you to learn and add to your plan. I get it. Creating your strategy from nothing is even more intimidating, By the end of this guide, you will know how to develop a social media strategy that will hopefully, ease that feeling.
What is a social media strategy?
Your social media strategy is your plan for how you create, post, and engage with your customers on any given social media platform. It includes your content guidelines, an outline of your posting frequency, your individual campaigns, and your engagement policy.
Why do you need a social media strategy?
Social media strategies encourage you to set goals, track performance and tweak your objectives over time. Without a starting point, you can't measure what's working and how to make changes to your content to hit your goals.
Steps to Creating a Social Media Strategy
Let's start building a social media strategy.
1. Define your audience.
Taking the time to understand your customers (and prospective customers) better makes it easier for you to tailor your content, messaging, product development, and services to meet the specific needs, behaviors, and concerns of the members of your target audience. If you haven’t already created a buyer persona, start by defining the key demographics of your audience you are trying to reach.
Age
Gender
Occupation
Income
Hobbies and Interests
Consider their daily challenges and issues. Pick no more than four types of people that represent the majority of your buyers to focus on. Do not get hung up on the exceptions or outliers, you can focus on how to attract them another time.
2. Start blogging.
80% of internet users interact with both social media sites and blogs. - DemandMetric
Fresh content is the key to a successful social strategy, so commit to creating new, quality content consistently.
Blogs allow you to publish lower-maintenance content, gain search traffic to your site, discuss your product, and show your expertise in your industry. Compile a list of frequently asked questions and address these questions with at least one new blog post per week.
Still, stuck on where to start? Visit AnswerSocrates.com and type in your industry, product, or service. Questions people are asking on Google with your search term will be compiled. Pick one and start writing an answer.
3. Create informative & educational content.
Many business owners still think of free content as “why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free.” They fear the customer will have everything they need and, therefore, won’t need them. It's easy to understand why they might think about educational content this way.
You can offer free content and information that your products/services help solve, and people will still pay money for what you're selling. We argue that free content can do even more, for instance, it can:
Build trust: Using educational content can do wonders to boost brand credibility. If your content is educational and helps your audience learn something, why wouldn't they think your products are equally as helpful?
Ensure happy customers: Educational content better prepares your customers and makes for a more informed audience. This can lead to higher customer satisfaction, repeat purchases, and fewer customer service complaints. Which in turn...
Creates customer advocates: Consumers trust each other more than they trust businesses. If your content is truly helpful, people will likely share it on social media and extend your reach.
Bring qualified Leads: The more prospective customers who read your content, the more informed they will be about what your business offers. The better they know this, the less amount of effort it will take for your sales team to convert them to customers.
Don’t forget: Don't just create content to gain new customers; you should create content that helps retain your current customers. as well
...it costs between 4 and 10 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. - Ian Kingwill
4. Focus on key platforms.
Before you start logging in and setting up your accounts on a bunch of platforms, be sure to consider these factors:
How much time do you have to devote to this social platform?
Do you have the tools & resources to create quality content?
Are your goals to boost brand awareness, or site traffic and sales?
Will you need an additional employee to maintain this platform, or will it be easy to run on your own?
Once you are established on a platform or two, focus your energy on building, engaging with, and growing a community there before moving on to another channel. And be sure to stay in the know of how the platforms you are on change, from new features to best practices.
Don't know where to start? An easy choice is Facebook. Facebook has among the most active social media networks, with 2.6 billion users interacting with the platform each month. Whether you are a restaurant or a clothing company, you’ll likely find success on Facebook.
5. Measure your results.
Measuring your social media work will give you information that can help you identify useful trends, increase your social reach, and deliver the content that your followers find most valuable. But do you ever wonder what the best way to measure it is? Or even how to measure it in the first place? After all, what good is taking the time to implement a social media plan if there is no way to see the ROI.
Be sure to choose metrics that are easy to gather - if it's too time-consuming to track, you won't have any time to analyze and adjust your content accordingly. Examples of simple metrics include whether you have a positive growth rate, the number of shares and comments on posts, and how much traffic your social accounts are sending to your website or blog.
Don't get hung up on vanity metrics. Vanity metrics include the number of followers or subscribers, page and profile views, and other flashy analytics that look great on paper, but do not move the needle for your business goals.
Don't forget: It's important to set realistic goals. Shooting for the moon is nice, but you will also want to measure against achievable milestones to gauge performance and make accurate adjustments to your planning.
6. Adjust your content.
Social media does not start working overnight. It takes time to build a following, establish your brand, and start seeing results. Do not be afraid to experiment to find the right combination of the platform, content, and messaging that works for your buyer persona.
There is no fast, 1-2-3 step guide for making your content “go viral.” Review what has been successful in the past and try to replicate this. Ultimately, it is about creating great content that connects with your audience and makes them want to share it.
You got this!
Still, feel overwhelmed? That's OK; I'm not sure that feeling ever fully goes away. Remember: Work on one social network at a time, keep your audience in mind, and focus on the content that works. You will see the results in no time.
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