2025 Social Media Strategy Guide

Download the full social media strategy guide here.

Dilemma Of The Marketing Budget

The first thing small- to medium-sized businesses should know is that creating and managing a social media account is free. The second thing they should know is that creating and managing a social media account still comes with costs. It costs a lot of time, and it can cost a feeling of frustration. So when you take that into account, it isn't free after all.

But this shouldn't deter you! Social media has become extremely important, replacing the more traditional media marketing like newspapers and radio. So here is our experienced advice! To market successfully, you'll need to overcome the business owner roadblock: Social Media Strategy.

?? Tip: Factor the time you're going to spend on social media into the overall costs, but don't forget the amazing opportunities it also provides.

A Little Bit About Us

Most small- to medium-sized businesses can't afford to hire a full-time marketing person, which is where we fit into the mix. Empowered Social Media launched in 2018 with just a half-finished Facebook page. Since then, we have built a team of talented, experienced, and passionate digital marketing experts and have worked with numerous clients in numerous different industries.

Using social media for business is hard enough, right? You've already built up enough courage to start your brand, but now you have to muster up enough bravery to post regularly and do enough research to know how to properly analyze your strategy! Along with that, you begin to wonder: what does "posting regularly" mean? And is any of your content impactful? But we're here to tell you now to worry. Insecurity with social media is natural. Trust us, when we first launched, we for sure felt that insecurity. The good news is that it does get easier! We've seen it over and over again for ourselves and other brands we work with, no matter which platform you decide to focus on nor what sort of product/service you're promoting.

You Don't Have To Be Everywhere

There are two key ingredients to a successful social media account: An effective strategy. Branding in a way that promotes community. In this guide, we will focus on the first key ingredient.

Here is something you will be relieved to hear: you don't need to be on every social media platform. In fact, being on every platform will be detrimental to you. Think about it, that means that you will have to spend more time and energy trying to remain active on each of them. So what should you do? Choose platforms that make sense for your business. For example: a cafe doesn't need to be on LinkedIn, which is a platform directed more toward B2B businesses.

?? Tip: When choosing a platform to focus on, consider the tools each platform offers and the audience you will find on that platform, as well.

Instead, the cafe business owner should focus on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, which they would be better suited for. However, to offer more insight into which platforms a business should focus on, here is a quick and shortened guideline:

Who Are You Targeting?

• Facebook: Community-Focused
• Instagram: Image and Video-Focused
• LinkedIn: Business and Career Focused
• TikTok: Gen Z and Video-Focused
• X: Millennials and College-Educated
• Threads: Direct and Personal
• Pinterest: Creative and Inspiring

Now, the question remains... where do you start and how many should you be on?

Choosing the Right Social Media Platforms for Your Business

As a key component of your 2025 social media strategy, understanding which platforms best serve your business aims is crucial.

1. Understand Your Audience Every social media platform attracts a unique demographic and serves varied interests. Identifying where your target audience spends their time online is the first step toward successful social media marketing. Ask yourself: Who are my customers? What is their age range? Where are they located? What are their interests? Most importantly, which platforms do they tend to gravitate towards?
2. Define Your Goals Next, you need to clarify your social media objectives. Are you trying to increase brand awareness? Drive website traffic? Or generate leads for your business? The answers to these questions will heavily influence your platform choices. For instance, if you're aiming to boost website traffic, then Facebook, with its ability to include clickable links within posts, would be an excellent choice. If your goal is visual storytelling to build brand awareness, Instagram or Pinterest could be your go-to platforms.
3. Evaluate Your Competitors Studying your competitors can reveal significant insights into what platforms might also work well for your business. Analyze not only what platforms they are using but also how they are leveraging these mediums. Consider how they are interacting with their followers, what kind of content gets the best engagement, and how often they post. This information can guide you in formulating your own successful social media strategy.

The Golden Rule

The Golden Rule is that all your copywriting should either inspire, educate, or entertain your audience. It's important to follow this rule because the content you post on social media should have a strategy behind it. Businesses that post just for the sake of it can fail to build their brand voice and be cohesive - which is a big waste of time.

Inspire

Each business goes through their own challenges and stories that make them who they are. Use your own story to give others hope and drive to achieve their own goals.

Highlight a challenge that your business has had to overcome or an accomplishment you achieved. Make sure that you don't come across as bragging, but instead honest and authentic.

• Scenario 1: Too Showy - “I just hit the 1,000 cars sold mark."
• Scenario 2: Grateful - “I want to thank each and every one of the amazing people I've worked with and helped to get into their car over the past five years.? It's been a pleasure and I'm truly grateful for you all helping me to reach this milestone.”

Inspiration is giving someone an opportunity to want to take action somewhere in their life.? Inspirational quotes are huge on social media. If you post them, only use quotes that capture the voice and personality of your brand.

Educate

Every business has something to offer.? 50/50 Fitness/Nutrition is a health and fitness community in Western Massachusetts. We have offered advice on how to do common exercises that improve posture, avoid future injury, and increase strength, allowing us to connect with people who aren't currently members. The video produced 2x better results and video views than our average post, which allowed us to create a large re-target pool for our free health and wellness consult campaign later on.

Whatever industry you're in, it's important to show that you have a voice and authority in your field. This is where education is key and not just anecdotal.? Many brands post their opinions and what has worked for them in the past. That's not a bad thing as long as they've found or gathered their own research to form that opinion.? Social media can be informative, but there's already so much misinformation on the internet. We should have a vetting process behind any educational content we offer.

Entertain

One of the main reasons we use social media is to be entertained. People like funny videos, hilarious memes, and ways to feel like a part of a greater conversation.? In my experience, the best performing social posts and ads are silly and lighthearted. When I compared the results from a funny Facebook video ad to a more serious one, the funnier ad performed better by over 300%. I run the social media channels for a local gym. Our best video ad was with a man on an indoor exercise sled.? In this video, he could've done the obvious: push the sled or try to do an exercise with it. Instead of using the sled as its traditionally used, we took a different approach that was much funnier.

He stood on top of the sled and used the handles to dismount off of it. He finished like an Olympic gymnast with his arms up above his head.? So what does this have to do with fitness or the gym?? It doesn’t make any sense until you see the ad copy.

The Marketing Funnel

The marketing funnel helps us guide our audiences to make a purchase. There will be three steps: awareness, engagement/consideration, and conversion. The content you create and the tools you use depend on which step you are in.

Awareness

You'll know if an audience member is in the awareness phase when: they don't know you or they're getting to know you. If you want to build awareness, your content will have to focus on telling your story and providing insights into who you are as a business. You can build awareness by using low-intent keywords and hashtags (this means that you're not pushing your audience to take action by asking for link clicks). You'll know if you are successfully building awareness if your reach and impressions are increasing.

Content Topics That Build Awareness:

• Core Values
• Behind the Scenes
• Thought Leadership
• Mission, Purpose, and Vision
• About
• Product or Service Feature

?? Tip: 50-60% of your content should focus on building awareness.

Engagement/ Consideration

You'll know if an audience member is in the consideration phase when: they know you exist, they are becoming familiar with your business, and they are considering your product/service as a solution to their problem. If you want to build consideration, your content will have to use CTAs such as asking your audience engage. You can build consideration by creating informative content, creating product/service focused content, sharing how you are unique, and mixing in higher-intent keywords/hashtags. You'll know if you are successfully building consideration if your overall engagement increases (as well as your reach).

Content Topics That Create Engagement:

• Milestone
• Would You Rather
• Case Study
• Thought Reversal/Myth Busting
• Question
• This vs That
• Then and Now
• Trends
• Collab
• Community

?? Tip: 20-30% of your content should focus on building consideration.

Conversion

You'll know if an audience member is in the conversion phase when: they are ready to make a purchase or they made a purchase with one of your competitors. If you want to increase conversions, your content should focus on minimizing conversion and sales barriers. You can increase conversions by creating content that shows your audience how to make a purchase, has clear CTAs, shares outcomes, and foresees objections. Knowing if you successfully increased conversions is the easiest one to spot - have you made a sale lately? Then you're increasing conversions!

Content Topics That Increase Conversions:

• How To's
• Objection Handling
• Reviews
• Education on usage of product/service
• Q&A
• Event
• Freebie

?? Tip: 10-20% of your content should focus on building conversions.

Download the full social media strategy guide here.

Why Should You Get The Guide?

• Learn how YOU can use social media as a business.
• Learn the pros and cons of using social media to grow your business.
• Learn about using a Marketing Funnel in your social media content to boost sales.
• Learn the best practices and strategies that will land you the best results.
• Learn the best times and days to post to your accounts.
• Learn what type of content increases your engagement.

What’s Covered In The Guide:

• Which channels should I use?
• What type of content works on which channel???
• How can I grow on social??????
• When do I post???????
• What do I even post about??

Download now.