How to Create a Winning Social Media Strategy for Your Business?

In this day and age, social media is a powerful tool for building brand awareness. Many companies get into social media marketing on an ad-hoc basis hoping that it will be enough to get results. A successful strategy requires planning and, most importantly, consistency. 

If you are new to social media, you must first understand what a Social Media Strategy is. In simple terms, a social media strategy is nothing but a plan to work out what you intend on achieving with your social media profiles and how you intend to get there. If you are looking for an effective social media strategy to take your business to the next level, these next steps will help you greatly.

Choose Goals That Align with Your Business.

The first step in creating a winning social media strategy is to set S.M.A.R.T goals for your business. 

The S.M.A.R.T goal framework states that your goals should be:

Specific – Have a clear definition of your goal. For example, change your goal to “I want 5000 followers by the end of the quarter” instead of “I want to increase my followers.” 

Measurable – You can use metrics to track your progress now that you have a specific number of working towards.

Attainable – Don’t reach for the moon straight off the line. Set challenging yet attainable goals and keep progressing forward.

Relevant – Keep your content relevant to your business goals or support your business.

Time-Bound – Setting a deadline to achieve your milestones will help you stay on track.

Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience is key to creating a successful social media strategy. Targeting the wrong group or making assumptions about your audience’s likes could result in a huge loss of time and revenue with little to no gains in attaining your business goals.

One way is to create Customer Personas. They are fictional representations of your ideal customer created by performing an audience analysis from your social media channels but collecting data such as Demographics, Location, Languages, Attitudes, interests, and beliefs. You should also be taken into account that different platforms attract different audiences.

Youtube and Facebook work best for ads due to their broad user base. If your target audience is Millennials and Gen Z, you should create powerful and eye-catching content that works best for Instagram and Youtube. Lets try to view private Instagram profiles to see the impact on the new generation audience. Linkedin’s user base is also best suited for in-depth industry-specific content.

Know Your Competition

If you are starting your business, analyzing your competition would give you a good sense of what to expect from your specific industry. If you are an established business and are already using social media to increase your customer base, then the same analysis of your competition would give you a good sense of what works and what doesn’t. It may also help you spot a niche that your competition hasn’t figured out yet and gain their edge. Keep track of what keywords or hashtags they use and how the target audience reacts to them, and incorporate your findings into your social media strategy.

Do a Social Media Audit (KPIs and Metrics)

There are a lot of metrics you could track on social media that could overwhelm you. To grow your business, it is best to look beyond the vanity metrics such as the number of followers or likes and focus on the ones that help you achieve your primary goals.

For example, 

Please keep in mind that each platform has its own set of metrics specific to it, which you have to dive into individually. If you are starting initially with a small budget, you will have to keep track of them individually. If you have the budget for it, you could also invest in a social media analytics tool that suits your requirement, which can simultaneously pull metrics from various platforms and generate reports for you.

Create and Curate Engaging Content

Social media is all about content. Your content has to be fresh, informative, and engaging. When it comes to content, plan, create and curate content that aligns with your business goals and will help you achieve them. You should also design your content for the platform you intend to place your content. There are different types of content at your disposal to create a winning social media strategy, such as creating engaging product videos, written posts, infographics, competitions, polls, and similar interactive content.

For example, don’t create polished and professional videos for a platform such as Tiktok. Such ads are better suited for a platform such as Linkedin, which has a well-educated and professional customer base. You can create promo videos that are short informative and captures your target audience’s attention immediately for Tiktok instead.

Create a Schedule

When it comes to an effective social media strategy creating good content is not enough, it is also important to share your content at the right times for maximum impact.

Track Performance and Tweak Your Strategy Accordingly.

When it comes to social media, there is no universal strategy. Social media algorithms keep changing and evolving, and your strategy has to too. The key to success is constantly monitoring your strategy every week and tweaking it to achieve the best results. Take some time out to learn more about social media reporting and try to track your progress every week. 

Another way to go is to ask your followers or your client list to give you feedback and suggestions on how you could improve their experience while interacting with your brand and make sure that you do your best to deliver on what they ask of you.

Conclusion

A social media strategy is a great way to let the world know that you exist as a business. This is followed by using this powerful tool, which is social media, to grow your business. A well-thought and executed Social media strategy can go a long way in helping you achieve those business goals that somehow appeared out of reach.