Start by clearly defining the goals you hope to achieve through your social media strategy. This can be anything from increasing brand awareness to getting actionable feedback from real customers.
At this stage, it’s important to take a step back and think on a higher level. Instead of thinking about what types of content to share, consider a theme.
1. Determine Your Goals
Having a clear idea of what you want to achieve from your social media marketing strategy is essential. This will help you determine which metrics are most relevant to your goals.
For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, you might track things like post reach or engagement counts. Alternatively, if your goal is to drive sales, you might want to focus on clicks or conversion rates.
Remember that many businesses use social media as a customer service channel, so you should also pay attention to things like brand mentions and direct messages.
2. Your Target Audience
To effectively reach your target audience, it’s necessary to understand who they are and what social media platforms they use. This will help you decide which platforms to use in your marketing campaign, and which ones to avoid.
This information can be discovered through customer surveys, social listening tools, and competitor analysis. Identifying your target audience will allow you to create more targeted posts that are more likely to resonate with them.
It’s also important to pay attention to the type of content your competitors are producing — and which social media platforms they’re using to reach their audiences. This will give you insight into what kind of tone and voice your brand should adopt.
3. Content Strategy
Once you have determined your social media goals and target audience, it’s time to start planning out what type of content you will create. Use your audience research, content audit and persona research to inform your content strategy.
Look at your competitors to see what type of content they are creating that is resonating with their audiences. You may also want to consider arranging collaborations with influencers in your industry to cross-pollinate your audiences and share brand messages.
Using tools like Sprout’s Competitor Analysis and Audience Insight Reports can provide an analytical snapshot of your competitive landscape.
4. Social Media Channels
Once you’ve determined your goals and target audience, it’s time to select which social media channels you’ll use. This is a crucial step, as you want to make sure that the channels you choose are aligned with your overall business goals.
For example, if your target audience is composed of young people, it may be a waste of time to invest in Facebook. Conversely, if your audience is comprised of athletes, you might be better off on Instagram.
It’s also important to keep in mind that social media users tend to like brands that are authentic and personable. According to Sprout Social, 34% of consumers want to see content that highlights a brand’s personality.
5. Determine Your KPIs
There’s an unfathomable amount of data, and the last thing you want to do is spend time tracking metrics that aren’t related to your business goals. Instead, identify the key KPIs that will help you understand whether or not your social media efforts are assisting with your business’ bottom line.
Vanity metrics like follower growth may be relevant, but you’ll also want to measure how your audience interacts with you on a more subjective level. This can be done through user-generated content campaigns or by responding to comments, questions, and mentions.
6. Measurement
Once you have your goals and KPIs in place, it’s time to determine your metrics. This step helps you to understand how well your current efforts are performing, and it will help you to identify ways to improve your future campaigns.
Many social media platforms offer their own analytics, and other tools can also be used. When possible, it’s a good idea to set up your measurement tools before your campaign starts. This will allow you to access data in real-time, and it will also make it easier to report on your campaign results later on.
7. Analytics
With over 4.65 billion people using social media around the world, every brand needs a clear and consistent strategy that delivers. This means all imagery, content and messaging across all platforms should be aligned with your branding, website and other digital real estate.
To determine if your marketing campaigns are performing as expected, be sure to monitor key metrics over time. You may find you need to tweak your approach or rethink your KPIs in order to meet goals. Using an analytics and reporting tool, such as Sprout, with a custom report builder capability will help you create reports that highlight the specific metrics stakeholders need to see.