What could be better than using social media for your business? Millions visit social media every day; it’s a captivated audience, with the average user spending 2 hours and 21 minutes per day. And best of all, the platforms are free.
But if you’ve tried to harness your marketing efforts using social media, you know it’s not as easy as just showing up. You need a strategy. Something to guide your actions to ensure you’re doing all you can to be effective at posting. And as you grow, metrics to tell you whether you’re succeeding or failing.
What does all that look like for your business? If you’re including social media in your marketing strategy this year, here’s where to start.
Why You Need a Social Media Strategy for Your Business
Looking at the numbers, using social media seems to be a no-brainer for savvy business owners. Yet, if you’ve dabbled in it, you know it’s not an easy game to play. Building a platform is difficult at best. Posting regularly can feel like a tedious task. And what about the results? How do you even know what the numbers mean?
Yet social media is essential. You know it just by tapping into marketing news sources or listening to the gurus.
It Increases Brand Awareness
What does your brand stand for? Social media allows you to share that message repeatedly. Social media provides an endless supply of content, and when you join and share, that consistency enables audiences to develop stronger relationships with you.
It Promotes Authenticity
Consumers want to know what your brand stands for, particularly younger audiences. Social media provides a platform for you to share what is important to you. It makes your brand relatable and builds brand trust.
It Drives Revenue
Want to increase traffic? Sharing on social media puts your brand in front of new faces every time you post. There’s a catch, however—your strategy is what guides your growth. You can’t post willy-nilly and expect results. Clarify your goals, and you can find success.
How To Create a Social Media Strategy for Your Business
Step 1: Set Your Goals
A winning social media strategy has clear objectives. You set timely goals that allow you to tackle smaller tasks and then use those to scale your social efforts in a way that works for your business. Common goals include:
- Increase brand awareness
- Generate leads and sales
- Grow your audience
- Create a customer care platform
Yes, you can have different goals. And as you grow, your goals can change over time. A successful social media strategy establishes metrics to focus on and then uses robust analytics systems to ensure you’re meeting your goals.
Step 2: Connect with Your Audience
The only way to build a robust audience is to understand them on a deeper level. Luckily, social media provides tools to help you understand who they are and what they want. With the right tools, you can utilize social media demographics to know where your target audience lives, what interests them, and what they’ll respond to.
Again, this changes over time. Things happen daily that can change their focus. You can catapult your brand into new territory just by paying attention to what’s trending.
Don’t forget that each platform targets different audiences. If someone follows you on X, they don’t want the same information you provide on Instagram. It’s crucial to develop a strategy for every social media platform you use.
Step 3: Understand Your Social Media Channels
What social media channels are you using for your business? Do some work better than others? A good place to start is to audit what you currently have and how you’re using it.
Review your past content and strategy. How did your audience respond and engage?
Assess the effectiveness. What content did they enjoy?
Establish patterns. It’s important to see what you enjoy posting and what people want to see. Your insights can help you develop your content calendar for moving forward.
You should also use this time to discover what platforms are bringing you success. This includes where you enjoy posting and where audiences are more likely to engage. When you see it on paper, it makes moving forward and improving that much easier.
Step 4: Get To Know Your Competition
Find your competition on social media and use their content to build your own strategy. It’s a good way to understand where their successes are. It also allows you to spot weaknesses and gives you ways to move forward with your own solutions.
You don’t need to follow everyone—select three or four. Dive in and discover what they’re doing:
- What content are they creating?
- Where are they building social media platforms?
- What topics do they cover?
- How often are they posting?
Step 5: Create a Content Calendar
A content calendar allows you to navigate one of the most challenging parts of social media: creating content. It gives you an overview of what content to produce and what to do with it once you have it. Details are essential:
- What social media channels to publish it on
- When and what content will be posted
- What format to use (video, photo, text)
- Who to reach with the content
- What’s the overall goal
- What budget to set for every post within a campaign
We realize this can be the most difficult part of working with social media. It’s where marketers spend the vast majority of their time. This is where it pays to keep inspiration at your fingertips and always be open to adding new resources to help you along the way.
Social Media for Business Is All About Testing and Evaluation
We’ve reached the point where many give up on a social media strategy. Social media is always on; you never get to a final result. There are new channels to conquer and new demographics to market to.
Your business changes as you grow. How you market today isn’t necessarily where you’ll want to be tomorrow. That makes your social media marketing plan a living document you should review and adjust accordingly.
Want ideas on how to move forward with your strategy this year? We can help.
