Build your most successful Social Media Strategy today
Building a Social Media Strategy is absolutely essential if you are planning on building your brand across social channels. With no strategy there will be no success and you will spend hours and hours of your time frustrated and probably spending more time on e.g. fixing images and brand colours, than actually building and growing the business. Of course having great branding and imagery is important and if have this combined with a robust strategy, you are bound to succeed.
Creating a strategy upfront will save you time and keep you focused on the task at hand.
Top 10 steps to developing a great strategy
1.Who are you targeting
Start by identifying who your ideal customers or target audience are. Are you sure they are the people who want to buy your products and services. What do they do? What social channels are the active on? What age are they? where do the live, what are their interests, hobbies, online activities, purchasing habits. The more specific you can be, the better you can tailor your social media targeting. For It is also important to remember that the way you talk to your audience, will be different for each channel – whilst it may be the same content, it will need to be tailored for each format etc. A good idea is to create a visual image of the different target groups – this can be a really good way to remember who are your key target group.
Gain some great insights by just looking across different channels and social media listening platforms (link to Linkbait) offer a really effective way to develop out deep insights on your audience. Remember social is where the actual conversations and word of mouth recommendations are taking place.
2. What do you want to achieve? What does success look like?
We know that social media takes time to do well and you have to commit a good chunk of time to building out your own brand awareness as well as marketing to your audience. This is a great time to set out what you want to achieve at the end of your efforts or at least the first phase of your effort, say 1 year to 18 months out. Remember unless you know where you are going and the end goal you want to achieve, you cannot map out a strategy on how to achieve these goals.
3. Plan your content – getting a calendar is critical
regular posting and engaging with your audience not only keeps you top of mind, it is essential to be seen in your audience’s feed. Remember social media algorithms will reward you if your post fresh, relevant content, posted on a consistent basis.
Create a content calendar or schedule to help you stay organized and ensure a steady flow of posts.
Check out Grammerly, Lists and Trello – to get ideas, polish grammer, track you projects and so much more!
Try to mix it up and don’t stick to just one type of content – create your own authentic shareable photos, videos, infographics and do some polls to guage the audience. Remember to create content that is authentic but also that you like and find engaging and keep trying to think outside the box.
Taking part and actually engaging with your audience is critical and this means being activec on social media. Alot of people find this very difficult, however, the least you can do is use your expertise to respond to comments and messages. Ask questions, run contests and encourage user-generated content. Show your followers that you’re listening and value their input.
It’s easy to forget you need to track your progress and how you are actually performing on your social channels. You can easily add google analytics to your website and there are lots of tools to ensure you can measure your reach, engagement, and conversions. Take note of what’s working and what’s not and be ready to adapt your strategy based on the insights you gather.
4. Define your target audience
Who are you going to get to buy your products and services. Start by identifying who your ideal customers or target audience are. Consider factors such as demographics (age, gender, location, income), psychographics (interests, hobbies, values), and behavior (online activities, purchasing habits). The more specific you can be, the better you can tailor your social media targeting.
5. Set clear goals
Determine what you want to achieve with your social media strategy. Your goals could include increasing brand awareness, generating leads, driving website traffic, boosting sales, or engaging with existing customers. Clearly defined goals will help you align your targeting efforts.
6. Select your social media platforms
Select the social media platforms that align with your target audience and goals. Different platforms attract different demographics and have unique features. For example, Facebook may be suitable for a wide range of audiences, while Instagram might be more effective for visual-based content.
7. Utilize platform targeting options
Each social media platform provides various targeting options to help you reach your desired audience. Some common targeting parameters include:
- Demographics: Target users based on age, gender, location, language, and other demographic factors.
- Interests and behaviors: Narrow down your audience based on their interests, hobbies, activities, and online behaviors. Platforms like Facebook provide detailed interest targeting options.
- Custom audiences: Upload your customer email list or website visitor data to create custom audiences. You can then target these specific groups on social media platforms.
- Lookalike audiences: Platforms like Facebook allow you to create lookalike audiences based on your existing customer data. These audiences consist of users who share similar characteristics with your existing customers.
- Retargeting: Utilize retargeting options to reach users who have interacted with your brand before, such as website visitors, email subscribers, or past customers.
8. Test and refine your targeting
Start with a targeted audience based on your initial assumptions, and then monitor and analyze the performance of your campaigns. Use analytics and insights provided by social media platforms to gain insights into the effectiveness of your targeting. Refine your targeting strategy based on the data you gather to optimize your campaigns.
9. A/B testing
Conduct A/B tests by running multiple versions of your ads or content to see which targeting options perform better. This will help you optimize your targeting based on the results.
10. Monitor and adapt
Continuously monitor the performance of your social media campaigns. Pay attention to engagement metrics, click-through rates, conversions, and other key performance indicators. Use the insights you gather to make data-driven adjustments to your targeting strategy.
Remember that targeting is an iterative process, and it may require ongoing refinement and adjustments based on your goals, audience feedback, and changing market conditions. Stay up-to-date with the latest features and options offered by social media platforms to make the most of your targeting efforts.
