A social media strategy is the amalgamation of planning, implementing, and measuring marketing techniques on social media channels. More specifically, a social media strategy is a file outlining your marketing goals for specific platforms, the tactics you will use to achieve them, and the metrics you will track to measure your social media growth. Surprisingly, only 50% of businesses have a documented strategy.
Our team of experts broke down how to set up your social media strategy to increase your brand’s online awareness. Follow these steps to build up your strategy:
1. Set Goals that Align with your Brand
Your goals will define your marketing strategy and how much time and labor you’ll need to dedicate to your social media channels. Be specific and realistic about the goals you want since that’ll give you a better idea of what specific tactics to utilize.
We put together a list of common goals businesses have for their social media strategy:
Increasing brand awareness: For creating authentic and long-lasting awareness, avoid exclusively publishing promotional posts and focus on content that emphasizes your brand’s values and mission.
Generating leads and sales: To promote products and services, consider your target audience and their primary platforms. For example, are you alerting customers about new products on Instagram and/or Facebook? Are you integrating your promotion codes and sales into your social media platforms? Are you utilizing hashtags for followers?
Driving traffic to your site: Are you in e-commerce or have an online store? Do you depend on the ad revenue displayed on your site? Promoting your website through social media is an effective tactic. After following a brand on social media, 91% visit the brand’s website or app. Either with promotional posts or social media ads, utilizing conversions and URL clicks can help you determine your ROI from social media.
Boosting engagement: 61% of consumers say brands that are most effective on social media know how to engage their audience, so consider exploring new ways of grabbing attention from your current followers. This means experimenting with messaging and content. Hashtags and user-generated content are examples of brands boosting engagement.Engagement differs from plain content entertainment because it gives a call to action.
Growing your audience: Bringing in new followers means finding creative ways to introduce your brand to people who haven’t heard of your business before. This means researching and listening to popular or important conversations around your business and its industry. Having an ear in these discussions can help expand your core audience and, possibly, reach adjacent audiences faster.
Contact Agency 102 today to start strategizing. Whether you are a brand new business trying to start your social media or an established brand looking for more insights, our strategists are here to help you.
2. Identify and Research Your Target Audience
Knowing your target audience and how they engage on social media is key. You can then create content that they will like, comment on, and share. Then, these followers will become customers of your business.
To help identify your target demographic, try breaking them down through these characteristics:
- Age
- City
- Interests
- Related social media content
- Average Income
- Job/career
When looking at the numbers and demographic breakdowns, try to be empathetic of the persona you are creating. These followers are people who are interested in your brand and what it has to offer so put yourself in their shoes to find new ways of making it easier for them to learn and explore your product or service.
3. Conduct a Competitive Analysis
It is important to know where you stand in your industry. Especially when starting out, learn from your competitors. This means monitoring how they post, what type of content they put out, what subjects they create content for, and more.
A competitive analysis allows you to understand the competition and any gaps or opportunities that exist. You’ll get a better understanding of what’s expected in your industry (and what’s not). which will help you set social media targets of your own.
For example, you may notice your competition is very active on Instagram but not so much on YouTube, even though the platform offers higher engagement. This can lead you to creating YouTube content that pulls in the competition’s consumer base.
At Agency 102, we conduct in-depth analyses for our clients looking to get ahead of their competitors on social media and beyond. Our team prides itself on proper research and accurate insights for our clients. Contact us here for more information on our services.
4. Do an Audit
If you already have social media content to analyze and track some metrics, take a look before re-evaluating your strategy. Ask yourself:
- What works and what doesn’t?
- Who is engaging with you and how well?
- Which social media channel does your target audience use?
- How does your social media position compare to your competitor’s?
Your audit should tell you what the purpose each of your social accounts should serve. If you are unclear on that purpose, consider whether this account is worth keeping.
5. Plan Your Content and Track It
After re-evaluating, you are now ready to plan out your social media. Specifically, what type of platforms to use? The overall aesthetics of your social media presence? What specific content do you want to publish? Images? Blogs? Video clips?
Once you’ve answered those questions, you can start posting and implementing your strategy. As you are publishing, make sure to keep an eye on audience reactions and, more importantly, their engagement. Tracking your social media metrics is crucial as this will fuel a lot of future insights and creative ideas for further developing your social media strategy.
Our experts at Agency 102 can help in every step of setting up your social media strategy. From identifying brand goals to directly posting for your brand, our team does it all. If you want to learn more about our services, please contact us here for a consultation.
Start Your Social Media Strategy with Agency 102
Agency 102 works hard to provide all our clients with the help they need to build their business. We offer marketing insights and strategies as well as provide creative and production services custom to our clients. Our team believes in building brand awareness through well-researched tactics and creating a genuine connection between a business and its consumers. See our contact page here.
