Building your own business and positioning yourself in the market takes a lot of hard work and dedication, that’s for sure. There’s one thing that can absolutely help your brand in gaining awareness in front of hundreds and thousands of people - you probably guessed it, your social media channels. But what’s the secret formula to the right strategy and why do you even need one?
There’s no denying that a successful social media strategy effectively sets your brand apart from your competitors. Simply creating a profile and posting random content every once in a while is not enough anymore. A content strategy for any social media channel can make all the difference when it comes to your success as it will help you stay on track and make sure that you’ve outlined the goals which you’re hoping to achieve. However, creating a winning social media strategy is often easier said than done. So, let’s have a look at some of the most important points and general processes you'll need in order to create a winning social media strategy for your business.
1. Determine your goals and objectives
The first thing you have to do when making a social media strategy is to define your goals. These goals will later serve as a metric of achievement. You need to set specific objectives and use measurable KPIs (key performance indicators) to determine the success and ROI (return on investment) of your business.
For this step, it’s best to follow the SMART goal characteristics: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. These characteristics will ensure that the goals you set are reasonable and achievable - if not, you only set yourself up for disappointment and frustration.
Some goals and objectives for your business could be:
- Increase website traffic by 25% in the first quarter
- Gain 10k followers in 2 months
- Grow monthly blog traffic by 120% within the first 5 months
- Generate 40% more sales through social media ads within the next 100 days
2. Define and understand your audience
The next thing that is crucial in any social media strategy, is to establish a clear vision of who your target audience is. You need to clearly define who you want to reach, in order to talk to them in the right tone of voice. Consider their age, location, gender, income, interests, aspirations, and so on. The more detailed you get the better.
3. Do a social media audit
Step number three is to analyze your current results if you are already posting on any channels. How are your social media platforms at the moment? How is your engagement? Which content performs best? Are you posting frequently? Is the message you're sending in line with your brand?
The information you’ll get from the audit can help you pinpoint which aspects you should invest in for your social media strategies. If you are only getting started now and you are opening a new account, then you don’t have to start with zero data. In this case, you can analyze your competition.
4. Look at your competitors and learn from them
Gathering information is vital when it comes to creating your social media strategies. And it’s not enough to only look at yourself - you also need to keep an eye on your competitors. And by doing a competitive analysis you will be able to see who your top competitors are. Ideally, you should focus on two to five competitor feeds and assess what kind of post formats and content topics get the most engagement. This will give you an idea of which strategies work best in your niche. You share an audience with these brands, so what works for them might work for your brand as well - just make sure that you put your unique touch on the content that you post.
5. Launch your social media strategy
Once you have done your data gathering and social media audit, you are ready to draft your own winning social media strategy. First, you will need to decide what social media platforms you should focus on. Depending on what your company does and who your target is, focus your efforts on producing quality content for that social platform. The next step will be to organize your content and draft your Instagram content strategy template. The best way to do that is by creating a content calendar. It will save you time and effort and ensure that you are consistently providing your audience with valuable content.
6. Adjust and improve your strategies
The last key factor that will make your social media strategy successful is to always adjust and adapt. At the end of every month or so, you should compare your different posts and with the help of the analytics check what worked best. It’s important to measure your results in order to fine-tune your strategy and improve every month. Do more of the things that are effective and change those that are not working well. Optimize your best content, stay connected with your audience, track your actions, adjust and do it all over again.
And there you have it! I know that with so many factors involved in creating a winning social media strategy, getting everything perfect on the first attempt is basically impossible. Each business has its own customers, values, and goals that make it very hard to follow a one size fits all plan. But through trial and error and our tips, we are confident that you will find your way and you will make the best out of it.
