How to Create a Killer Social Media Strategy [8 Simple Steps]

By ama.org on October 25, 2024

1. Set goals

Every great social media plan starts with clear objectives and goals. Goals will help you define what you want to achieve and dictate how you invest your time and energy. They will also help you track the right metrics while measuring ROI.

This goes without saying, but all your goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Once you have your goals, break them down into smaller objectives. Objectives are easier to scale, alter, and keep track of in order to attain the larger goals in your plan.

Examples of social media goals:

Increase brand awareness

Generate leads and sales to xx in Q4

Grow social audience to xx followers by 2024

Provide holistic and prompt customer care

2. Provide holistic and prompt customer care

In order to create a foolproof plan, you need to understand who you are communicating with, down to their biggest pain point and most pressing need. The effectiveness of your communication is based on how well you know your audience. If you don’t know who you’re speaking to, your content will always miss the mark.

When researching your audience, use social media tools to gain insight. Don’t rely on your gut or make assumptions where data is available. Defining your audience based on demographic, psychographic, and geographic information will help you determine the kind of content that will perform well.

However, it should be noted that audiences behave differently across various platforms. So, it is important to go further and define audiences based on social networks. Different social media platforms cater to different audiences. So, your Facebook audience might be different from your Twitter audience, which will impact the type of content you create for different platforms.

3. Select your social media channels wisely

Now that you have a clearer idea of who your audience is and where to find them, it’s time to narrow down which social media channels you want to invest in based on your industry and target audience. Don’t spread yourself too thin.

Consider this: It takes a lot of resources to create a social media presence across multiple platforms. Large corporations can afford to have a presence on all platforms. But what happens when you are a small or medium enterprise with a limited budget? Take account of the resources you have and then use them on the platform with the highest ROI potential.

4. Determine the metrics and KPIs you want to measure

Effective social media marketing is built on performance metrics. In order to get the most out of your data, don’t focus on generic metrics. Instead, double down on metrics that align with your goals. If the goal is brand awareness, track the reach, engagement, and hashtag performance. If sales is the goal, track the clicks and conversions.

5. Create engaging content

Content is the driving force of social media; without it, social media would be non-existent. That’s why you need to get it right. From the onset, create a content strategy that defines the types of content you will publish based on your goals, audience, and brand.

Great content is based on the following pillars:

Goals:

What are you trying to achieve with your content? If you want to increase sales, then product-first content is the way to go. If you are focused on brand awareness and follower growth, then creating educational and entertaining content is the way.

Brand voice:

Every great brand has a voice. Having a unique voice will help you stand out on social media and create connections with your audience. The key is to be human and not robotic in your communication while using industry-appropriate language.

Originality and trendiness:

There’s no consensus on whether brands should follow the trends or create original, unique content. However, both styles work, and the best approach would be to focus on what your audience wants.

Consistency:

In order to be recognizable, you need to have consistent themes across your social media platforms. This means your graphics and content should have the same feel and look on all platforms.

6. Create a content calendar

Once you define your content pillars, it’s time to plan your content. A content calendar will help you know what to post in advance, prepare for the same, and also keep you from repeating content.

When creating your content calendar, consider the optimal times per platform for maximum engagement. Then, schedule your posts in advance to save time. When scheduling your posts, ensure that you are available to engage and interact with customers at those times. If possible, ensure someone is available to reply to comments and interact with your audience when you post.

In case you have limited resources, consider investing in AI tools and automation so that you are able to interact with your customers even when you’re offline.

7. Conduct a competitive analysis

It is important to check out what competitors are doing in order to get a good sense of your industry. This can also help you see what they are doing well and what they are not doing well, which can lead to unexplored opportunities.

For example, if your competitors rely on one social media platform, you might want to take a different approach and focus on the platforms they neglect. This way, you will operate in an underserved environment with less competition.

Note: The goal of competitive analysis is not to copy your competitor’s ideas. It’s to identify what’s working and adapt your campaigns to the conclusions you draw.

8. Evaluate and improve your strategy

The quickest way to grow your social media is to evolve your strategy constantly. Every time a campaign comes to an end, analyze how it performed and draw insights that will help inform your next campaign. Analyze all your content and create performance benchmarks to identify top-performing content. After every analysis, make small adjustments to your strategy instead of waiting for huge quarterly or yearly improvements. Constant evolution will help you stay on top of trends and improve strategically.

What’s Next? Just start.

Creating a social media strategy can seem complicated, but it isn’t. Take it step by step. If you have a team, make it a team task in order to complete it faster and get diverse inputs. Bottom line, don’t worry about step 2 if you haven’t completed step 1.