1. Set goals that make sense for your business
Lets kick things off with a quick question:
What do you want from social media, anyway?
Social media strategy planning starts with your goals.
Perhaps you want to build a community or a more dedicated following. Maybe you want your social accounts to drive more revenue this year.
Either way, your goals will define your content strategy and how much time and energy youll need to dedicate to your campaigns.
What really matters is that you set realistic SOCIAL MEDIA goals (not marketing or business goals)
Emphasis on realistic, or SMART.
I recommend tackling smaller objectives that allow you to scale your social efforts in a way thats both reasonable and affordable.
Below are some sample goals that businesses of all shapes and sizes can pursue:
Increase brand awareness. This means getting your name out there. To create authentic and lasting brand awareness, avoid solely publishing promotional messages. Instead, focus on content that emphasizes your personality and values first.
Generate leads and sales. Whether online or in-store, followers arent going to make social purchases by accident. For example, are you about alerting customers about new products and promos?
Grow your brands audience. Bringing new followers into the fold means finding ways to introduce your brand to folks who havent heard of you before.
Growing your audience also means discovering conversations around your business and industry that matter the most. Digging through your social channels is nearly impossible without monitoring or listening to specific keywords, phrases or hashtags. Having a pulse on these conversations helps you reach your core audience much faster (Learn from Hootsuite and apply what you learn ) www.sproutsocial.com/social-listening/
Boost community engagement. Explore ways to grab the attention of your current followers. This means experimenting with messaging and content. For example, does your brand promote user-generated content and hashtags?
Even something as simple as asking a question can increase your engagement rate. Your customers can be your best cheerleaders, but only if youre giving them something to do and to talk about.
Drive traffic to your site. Simple enough. If youre laser-focused on generating leads or traffic to your website, social media can make it happen. Whether through promotional posts or social ads, keeping an eye on conversions and URL clicks can help you better determine your ROI from social media. www.sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-roi/
Any combination of these goals is fair game and can help you better understand which networks to tackle, too. When in doubt, keep your social media marketing strategy simple rather than muddling it with too many objectives that might distract you. Pick one or two and stick with them.
2. Take time to research your target audience
Making assumptions is bad news for marketers.
And thanks to the sheer wealth of customer data and social media analytics tools out there, you really dont have to anymore. www.sproutsocial.com/features/social-media-analytics/
Much of what you need to know about your audience to influence your social media marketing strategy is already available, granted you know where to look.
Remember: different platforms attract different audiences
Your data effects your decision which networks your brand should approach and what types of content to publish.
Here are some key takeaways from lectures:
Facebook and YouTube are both prime places for ads due in part to their high-earning user bases.
The majority of Instagram and TikToks users are millennials or Gen Z, signaling the strength of bold, eye-popping content that oozes with personality.
Women vastly outnumber men on Pinterest, which is noted to boast the highest average order value for social shoppers.
LinkedIns user base is well-educated, making it a hub for in-depth, industry-specific content that might be more complicated than what you see on Facebook or Twitter.
Dont spread yourself too thin. Instead, focus on networks where your core audience is already active.
Do your homework on your existing social media audience
Although demographics data can give you insight into each channel, further analysis needs to be done before you can determine what your real-world social customers actually look like.
Thats why many brands use a social media dashboard such as Hootsuite that can provide an overview of whos following you and how they interact with you on each channel. This research highlights which social networks are seeing the most activity, helping you to ensure that you are spending your time on the right networks. www.sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-dashboard/
