A social media strategy is a key piece of your marketing strategy. It guides your content creation process so that everything you do on social media is getting you closer to achieving your goals.
Social media strategies have a few purposes. These documents guide your content creation to ensure it aligns with your overarching goals while providing metrics that determine its success.
Since all the content aligns with your goals, social media strategies also ensure you'll provide your followers, customers, and prospects with a consistent brand experience. This has been shown to have a positive effect on customer loyalty.
Here's a breakdown of how to create your own social media marketing strategy.
How to Make a Social Media Strategy
Step 1: Look at your most recent data.
Your strategy needs a starting point. Make a note of these data points so you can easily compare and track your progress as you implement your new strategy.
Step 2: Define your goals and how you'll measure them.
Based on the data you've already analyzed, identify areas for improvement and opportunities you'd like to pursue. Then, create SMART goals, including how you'll measure each one.
Step 3: Consult with your buyer personas.
Take a look at your organization's buyer personas. What challenges do they need your help to overcome? What social platforms are they likely using? These answers and more are likely already in your buyer personas, so be sure to include that information in your social strategy.
Step 4: Determine which platforms you'll use.
Along with determining which ones you'll use, you also need to determine the purpose each will serve, the type of interactions you want, and what content formats you'll use.
You'll also need to include some sort of justification for why you've made those choices, with the extent depending on how much buy-in you need from your organization's leadership team.
Step 5: Identify the content types each persona needs at different stages of their journey.
Providing prospects with the content they need at each stage of the buyer journey is key to converting them into customers.
Based on the needs identified in the buyer personas, determine what they need to know about your business and the solution you provide at each stage of their journey, and what type of format that content should take.
Step 6: Do a content audit of what you already have.
Armed with that intel, you have to resist the urge to dive right into content creation. First, you need to take stock of what you already have that will help carry out your strategy. After all, there's no sense in recreating content you already have. Work smarter, not harder.
Step 7: Create a calendar.
A calendar will help you keep track of what needs to go out every day of the week. In this calendar, you should also incorporate note-worthy dates you want to address in your social media content.
Step 8: Delegate responsibilities to team members and initiate a reporting structure.
Once you know what needs to be done to implement the strategy, it's time to delegate responsibilities to team members and establish a reporting structure. This will keep everyone accountable for their social strategy duties.
It's also helpful at this time to distribute the social media strategy to all team members so everyone knows how their individual role fits into the bigger picture.
Step 9: Create the content.
Now that everything is in order, you and your team are now in a position to create the content to carry out your strategy. Be sure to use a mix of formats, engage with your followers, track engagement, and traffic flowing to your website.
Conclusion
A social media strategy may seem like a tedious investment, but it will provide your team with immense direction into why they're creating the content you've asked them to and how it's going to impact the business as a whole. These steps will get you on the right path for making your own social media strategy.
