How to Create a Social Media Strategy
A strong social media presence is critical for businesses to experience long-term sustainable growth. The thing is…showing up here and there when we feel like it isn't enough. To fully utilize the power of social media, you must have a well-defined plan that aligns with your objectives and engages your target audience.
In this detailed blog post, we will share the step-by-step process of creating a successful social media strategy for your brand with a focus on evergreen content.
Understanding Your Audience
Understanding your audience and their habits on social media is critical for developing a successful social media strategy. You’ll want to conduct market research, collect data, and develop detailed buyer personas. You want to speak and interview real individuals rather than basing your research on a hypothesis.
You can do so by posting a survey on social media, offering a quick incentive in exchange for feedback, or running a paid survey campaign with Facebook ads (or other platforms).
You can also attend a local event that your typical ideal buyer would attend and ask questions. You can ask questions in a Facebook Group. As long as you define the purpose of your survey, and you ask participants to be honest. The problem with semi-fictional buyer personas is that they don't paint a full picture, and you could be missing data points that you need to help you in your social media strategy efforts.
Let's define a few tips that will help you define your ideal buyers and update this information regularly.
Begin with researching your target market's demographics, psychographics, and purchasing behavior patterns. To learn more about your target audience, use some tips mentioned above, such as using surveys, interviews, focus groups, Facebook groups, other online communities and social media analytics (If you have any.)
Examine your current consumer base for similar characteristics, interests, and purchasing habits. Don't be afraid to ask your current customers questions. Depending on when you do this research, you may not be able to do this, but if it's an option for you, it's recommended.
Segment Your Audience. Divide Your Audience. Segment your target market based on criteria such as age, gender, geography, interests, and purchasing power. This segmentation will assist you in developing more distinct and relevant personas. This is important for brands and service providers selling products to various audiences.
Beyond demographics, explore the emotional attributes of your buyers. Recognize their hopes, concerns, motives, and desires. This will assist you in tailoring your messaging and content to their needs.
As your brand changes, assess and update your buyer personas on a regular basis. To guarantee the accuracy, validate your personas by testing your messaging and content with your target audience and getting feedback on a regular basis.
Knowing your target audience allows you to adapt your content and pick the best ways to reach them. Time and time again, we audit social media for brands who never created personas, not thinking that it was really needed. Although there are times when a business owner may have a clear picture, it's always best for your marketing team to have access to this data.
Setting Clear Goals and Objectives
Define your social media objectives based on your overall business goals. Setting Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) goals is essential, whether it's increasing brand awareness, generating leads, or driving customer engagement. Clear objectives will guide your strategy and help you track progress.
What exactly are SMART goals?
S stands for Specific. Clearly define the objectives you want to achieve through your social media strategy. Avoid vague goals like "increase followers." Instead, be specific, such as "increase Instagram followers by 20% within three months."
M stands for Measurable. Ensure your goals can be quantitatively measured. Use metrics like engagement rate, reach, conversions, or click-through rates to track your progress. For example, "achieve a 5% increase in website traffic from social media channels within six months."
A stands for Attainable. Set goals that are realistic and attainable based on your available resources, budget, and current social media performance. Consider factors like team capacity, budget limitations, and industry benchmarks when setting targets.
R stands for Relevant. Align your social media goals with your overall business objectives. The goals should contribute to the growth and success of your brand. For instance, if your business objective is to increase sales, a relevant social media goal could be “generate 30% more leads through social media advertising in the next quarter.”
T stands for Time-bound. Set a specific time frame for achieving your goals. This creates a sense of urgency and helps you stay focused. For example, “launch a new social media campaign and achieve 10,000 impressions within one month.”
You’ll also want to do a SWOT Analysis of your current social media presence (if any) and of at least two competitors. A SWOT analysis is essential when establishing goals because it helps assess internal strengths and weaknesses, identify external opportunities and threats, and ensures goals are aligned with market dynamics and brand capabilities.
How can you complete a SWOT analysis?
You'll start by identifying strengths. Determine what your brand does well and what sets it apart from competitors. These could include unique features, strong customer relationships, or specialized expertise.
You'll then move on to identify weaknesses. Identify areas where your brand may be lacking or could improve. These could be things like limited resources, poor customer service, or outdated technology.
Next, it's time to explore opportunities. Look for external factors that could benefit your brand. These could be emerging trends, new markets, or partnerships that have the potential to drive growth and success.
Now, it's time to identify threats. Consider external factors that could pose challenges to your brand. These might include competitors, changing consumer preferences, or economic factors that could impact your business negatively.
To simplify your process, you can create a chart like the one pictured and fill it out with your findings. I always make notes about competitors as well to facilitate the process.
Choosing the Right Social Media Platforms
Not all social media platforms are created equal, and not every platform is the best option for your business. Research various platforms, look at their demographics, and assess their characteristics. Choose platforms that correspond to your target audience and goals.
When it comes to social media presence, remember that quality wins quantity. While it is true that quantity most certainly does help, in order to reach your goals, it's important to create a sustainable system first.
Content Strategy and Planning
Content is the heart of any successful social media strategy. Your content should help your audience at various stages of their journey.
With that in mind, you'll create content pillars and styles that are unique to your strategy and goals.
If we take a health & wellness coach, for example, their content pillars could be:
Wellness mindset
Industry myths
Private session benefits
Mental Health
Fitness Tips & Demos
Client Success Stories
Now from these content pillars, based on your goals and which stage of the buyer's journey you want to reach, you could create content on your relevant pillar in the following formats. Some content pillars will be able to translate into various content styles, while others will fit a particular style the best.
Educational/Informative Content
Entertaining/Humorous Content
Inspirational/Motivational Content
Behind-the-Scenes/Inside-Look Content
User-Generated Content
Thought Leadership/Industry Insights
Promotional/Sales Content
Comparative Content
You’ll want to consider which content styles can be used to create evergreen content. Evergreen content is content that is pretty much always relevant and requires little updating.
Examples of evergreen content that could be Inspirational/Motivational would be your brand story, where you share what struggles you had to overcome to get where you are today. This type of content always does well as it allows your audience to connect with you.
If we look at Thought Leadership/Industry Insights, this is where you can give your own point of view on various topics. This type of content also tends to remain relevant, and you can easily build on it.
By ensuring that you balance the delivery and content style of each of your pillars, you're ensuring that your potential buyers have a better experience and that their needs are met at various stages of the journey.
When you create your content, you'll be able to craft your messaging to ensure that it speaks specifically to who your ideal buyer is. Be sure to refer back to your audience research when required.
How many posts should you create? There is no right or wrong answer. Use your goals, your research, and content pillars to guide you. The other thing to consider is if you are going to be creating your own content or if you have team members helping you.
Building a Community and Engaging with Your Audience
Social media is not just about broadcasting messages; it's about building relationships. Encourage two-way communication by responding to comments and messages promptly. Foster a sense of community by actively engaging with your audience, running contests, giveaways, and polls. By creating meaningful connections, you can cultivate brand loyalty and advocacy.
It's also important to remember that in the context of social media, building a community means something very different from one business to the next. Building a community is widely associated with unique goals; it's not just the act of responding to comments and being proactive in providing a good experience.
Measuring and Analyzing Results
Since you've now established SMART goals, you'll also be able to identify what data to look for on each of the social media platforms you are using. For example. If one of your goals was to gain 100 website visits from Instagram in the next three months.
You would likely look at the following:
Instagram Reach
Instagram Engagement
External Link Taps/Website Taps
In your website analytics, you'd also want to compare the data and see how many website visits are coming from Instagram.
Ongoing Efforts
Developing a social media content strategy is a critical step toward social media success.
You can develop a successful social media presence that moves your business forward by analyzing your audience, defining clear goals, choosing the right platforms, writing compelling content, fostering community, and monitoring outcomes.
Implement the methods provided in this thorough blog post to maximize the power of social media for your business.
If you are looking to be pointed in the right direction, learn more about this social media profile audit and content plan offer.