How to Develop a Winning Social Media Strategy

As a business, you’re probably already on at least one social media platform. But you shouldn’t simply rely on a scattergun approach, firing out posts with no prior thought. Instead, every business using social media should have a strategy in place, to guide everything they do across their various social media profiles.

But what does a winning social media strategy encompass? We’ll take you on a step-by-step walk through creating your strategy below.

Identify Your Goals

The development of any good marketing strategy begins with the identification of goals – what exactly do you want to achieve through the use of social media? It could be that you want to build your brand awareness, or perhaps you want to garner new followers of your brand.

The creation of a community based around your brand is also a legitimate goal, as is increasing the amount of engagement between your brand and social media users. And finally, of course, you could be looking to increase traffic to your website, which, in turn, should lead to a boost in sales.

Try to put your goals in real terms – for example, to grow your followers to 10,000 people. And make sure they’re achievable – having unrealistic goals is the fastest way to destroy the morale of a social media team.

Understand Your Demographic

Now you need to develop a profile of your user demographic, which you can do through customer research. Perhaps the most important aspects of your audience you need to understand are sex and age, the latter of which can heavily influence the social media platform your users are most commonly using.

Once you’ve identified your demographic, you can create a customer profile. For example, your research might show that your typical customer is male, aged 20-35, with a high income. You can then use this customer profile to guide all your marketing efforts, not just the ones taking place on social media.

Evaluate the Platforms

Next, you need to spend some time evaluating the various social media platforms, deciding which of them you should target. This is where that customer profile you’ve just developed will come in use.

If you’re targeting a younger demographic, you might favour Instagram and Facebook, as both are used by around three-quarters of all 18- to 24-year-olds. But if you’re targeting an older demographic, you might choose to stick to Facebook, as it’s the only platform used by a sizeable chunk of 50- to 64-year-olds. And if you’re looking for businesspeople? You should almost certainly factor LinkedIn into your thinking.

Scour the Competition

Now you’ve identified your market and worked out which social media platforms you want to target, you should spend some time studying the competition. After all, many competitors will have been in the social media game for several years, plus they have big budgets, so they’ll know exactly how to do things in the most effective way possible.

But what should you look for? Well, you could be checking out the common hashtags they’re using, and you could also work out the topics they often return to, as the fact they return again and again indicates that the topic is popular with users. And if you’re thinking about running social media adverts, you should see which keywords they’re targeting.

But don’t try to copy an opponent’s strategy exactly. Instead, try developing your own brand and identity, so you can set yourself apart from the competition.

Plan Engaging Content

Now it’s time to start cranking out quality content. Spend time planning out a content calendar, so you can add some orderliness to what can be a confusing process.

Once you’ve planned your content, get writing. Ideally, you’ll be several weeks ahead of schedule, so the content is covered even if you need to take a break. And once the content is complete, schedule it, so it goes live on a specific day.

Looking to learn how to create great content? If so, check out our post on how to get your content to go viral! 

Designate Communication Duties

Social media marketing isn’t just about publishing content and then forgetting about it. In fact, the most important part is often responding to comments and questions – after all, ignoring your potential customers really isn’t a great look.

But if you’ve got several people on your social media team, you don’t want people stepping on other team members’ toes. This is why, when planning your social media strategy, you need to clearly designate who is responsible for replying to comments, and when.

By designating communication duties, you’ll always have someone accountable for social media communication, and you’ll also prevent two people answering the same question at the same time.

Understand New Platforms

Finally, remember that your strategizing should be ongoing – never rest on your laurels, as your competitors certainly won’t.

This means always keeping appraised of new social media platforms popping up, which they invariably do every year or so. If you can be one of the first to start using a new social media platform, you’ll have a head start over your competitors.

Trust Hello Social with Your Social Media Strategy

Of course, there’s no need for you to create a social media strategy at all – if you outsource your social media management to the experts here at Hello Social. Our team can come up with the perfect strategy for your business, before then executing it perfectly. To find out more, get in touch today!