How to create a comprehensive social media strategy
Like everything in business, you need to plan your social media strategy. Running a business without plans leaves you running around like a headless chook.
Yes, you may have a general idea of what you’re doing, and for now, it’s working. But without goal setting and planning, you’ll never know if you’re growing and succeeding as a viable business – the ultimate end goal for many business owners.
Like all aspects of your business, social media is an area where you need to have a comprehensive strategy in place. It’s critical if you want to connect with your audience and measure your social media success against the goals you set.
Here’s my biggest tip for creating a social media strategy
Too many businesses go into social media marketing without a plan. They know they ‘should’ be on social media, but they don’t understand what they need to do.
The trick to creating a social media strategy that works is to make it actionable.
Making an actionable social media strategy works when you understand your customers (your audience). When you know your audience (i.e. who you’re talking to), you can share posts or ideas about the things they care about, in the places or on the platforms where they’re already hanging out.
When I work with clients, we create strategies they can execute. We identify the exact platforms/tools to use to implement and execute their social media marketing plan and build a community of fans, followers, and customers.
What’s included in a comprehensive social media strategy
As a social media manager, I have 7 top aspects built into any social media strategy. Here’s what I include.
1. Audience insights
Social media is a powerful form of marketing, and as any marketing genius will tell you – it all starts by knowing your audience. To create a wildly successful social media campaign, you must know your audience and understand what it is they want to see on social media.
When you speak to your audience, and they believe you truly understand them, you’ll find you get more leads, convert more people into customers, and create a loyal following of fans.
2. Goals
Most of us, especially when starting our business, will set goals. And if you’ve ever worked with a coach, you’ll know it’s all goals, goals and more goals! We’re told, ‘Without goals, you can’t measure your success or keep on track’.
Your social media strategy goals must be SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
Your key message is your business's ‘who you are and what you do’. This aspect is something you must totally nail! Blurt it out to start, then condense your message into short and snappy sentences.
These short and snappy key messages about who you are and what you do need to be communicated in every piece of social media activity you produce.
4. Delivery
Now that you have a plan, goals, and nailed your key messages, how will you deliver them to your audience? You need to consider:
What platforms will you use
How often will you post
Will you schedule content in advance (if you’d prefer this)
Will you focus on organic or paid marketing or a mixture of both
In social media, the timing of posts can be a critical element for a successful campaign. When you know your audience, you’ll know when they’re online and will be able to post content where and when they’ll see it.
5. Visuals
Visuals play a super important role in any social media strategy, particularly on the more visual platforms like Instagram. Whenever you’re creating visuals for social media, always stay on-brand. Use your brand colours and create images that relate to your business.
Many Instagram accounts create a consistent look for their brand by sticking to similar visuals – colours, tones, themes, imagery etc.
6. Tactics
Tactics in a social media strategy refer to what else you can do to boost the success of your social media strategy. In social media, the most powerful tactic you can use is hashtags.
Hashtags allow you to reach your audience who search for your chosen hashtag. You’ll need to consider what hashtags you will use (i.e. what will your audience search for) and how many you will use per post.
7. Metrics
In social media, metrics are what you use to measure your success. I’m not a massive fan of vanity metrics (e.g. having many followers on social media), and I encourage you to only look at meaningful metrics.
By meaningful metrics, I mean the opportunities you have for real growth in your business – content sharing, conversion rates, repeat page views, number of blog comments, site visitors, etc.
Need help creating a comprehensive and successful social media strategy?
When I work with clients, I help them create a social media strategy that they can implement and execute. You will get greater success from social media marketing by nailing your brand voice, audience messaging, visuals, posts, and posting frequency and times.
If your social media isn’t reaching your audience, or you’re not having the success you hear others achieve through social media, perhaps it’s time to formulate a new social media strategy.
Please get in touch, and let’s discuss the changes we can make to your social media for greater audience interaction and conversion.