8 Easy Steps On How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy

A social media marketing strategy is a summary of everything you plan to do and hope to achieve on social media. It guides your actions and lets you know whether you’re succeeding or failing. Every post, reply, like, and comment should serve a purpose.

The more specific your strategy is, the more effective the execution will be. Keep it concise. Don’t make your plan so lofty and broad that it’s unattainable or impossible to measure.

In this post, we’ll walk you through an eight-step plan to create a winning social media marketing plan of your own.

How to create a social media strategy

Step 1. Set social media marketing goals that align to business objectives

The first step to creating a winning strategy is to establish your objectives and goals. Without goals, you have no way to measure success or return on investment (ROI).

Each of your goals should be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

This is the S.M.A.R.T. goal framework. It will guide your actions and ensure they lead to real business results.

Step 2. Learn everything you can about your audience

Knowing who your audience—and ideal customer—is and what they want to see on social is key to creating content that they will like, comment on, and share. It’s also critical if you want to turn social media followers into customers for your business.

Try creating audience/buyer personas. These allow you to think of your potential fans, followers, and customers as real people with real wants and needs. And that will allow you to think more clearly about what to offer them.

Step 3. Research the competition

CONDUCT A COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

A competitive analysis allows you to understand who the competition is and what they’re doing well (and not so well). You’ll get a good sense of what’s expected in your industry, which will help you set social media targets of your own.

This analysis will also help you spot opportunities. For example, maybe one of your competitors is dominant on Facebook, but has put little effort into Twitter or Instagram. You might want to focus on the networks where your audience is underserved, rather than trying to win fans away from a dominant player.

ENGAGE IN SOCIAL LISTENING

Social listening is another way to keep an eye on the competition. Here’s how to use Hootsuite streams for social listening and monitoring competitors:

As you track competitor accounts and relevant industry keywords, you may notice shifts in the way these channels are used. Or, you might spot a specific post or campaign that really hits the mark—or totally bombs. Keep an eye on this information and use to it evaluate your own goals and plans

Step 4. Conduct a social media audit

Examine your current efforts

If you’re already using social media tools, you need to take a step back and look at what you’ve already done and accomplished. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. What’s working, and what’s not?
2. Who is connecting with you on social?
3. Which networks does your target audience use?
4. How does your social media presence compare to that?

Your audit should give you a clear picture of what purpose each of your social accounts serves. If the purpose of an account isn’t clear, think about whether it’s worth keeping.

To help you decide, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is my audience here?
2. If so, how are they using this platform?
3. Can I use this account to help achieve meaningful business goals?

Asking these tough questions will help keep your strategy on track and focused.

LOOK FOR IMPOSTOR ACCOUNTS

During the audit you may discover fraudulent accounts using your business name or the names of your products.

These imposters can be harmful to your brand, never mind capturing followers that should be yours. Report them. You may want to get your Facebook and Twitter accounts verified to ensure your fans and followers know they are dealing with the real you.of your competitors?

Once you gather all this information in one place, you’ll have a good starting point for planning how to improve your results.

Step 5. Set up accounts and improve existing profiles

DETERMINE WHICH NETWORKS TO USE (AND HOW TO USE THEM)

As you decide which social channels to use, you will also need to define your strategy for each network.

It’s a good exercise to create mission statements for each network. These one-sentence declarations will help you focus on a very specific goal for each account on each social network.

Example: “We will use Facebook advertising to target a specific audience in order to increase sales.” One more: “We will use Instagram for promoting and sharing our company culture to help with recruitment and employee advocacy.”

If you can’t create a solid mission statement for a particular social network, you may want to reconsider whether that network is worth it.

SET UP (AND OPTIMIZE) YOUR ACCOUNTS

Once you’ve decided which networks to focus on, it’s time to create your profiles—or improve existing profiles so they align with your strategic plan.

Make sure you fill out all profile fields

Use keywords people will use to search for your business

Use images that are correctly sized for each network

Step 6. Find inspiration

While it’s important that your brand be unique, you can still draw inspiration from other businesses that are great on social.

SOCIAL NETWORK SUCCESS STORIES

You can usually find these on the business section of the social network’s website. (Here’s Facebook’s, for example.)

These case studies can offer valuable insights you can apply to your own goals for each social network.

AWARD-WINNING ACCOUNTS AND CAMPAIGNS

You could also check out the winners of The Facebook Awards or The Shorty Awards for examples of brands that are at the top of their social media game.

YOUR FAVORITE BRANDS ON SOCIAL MEDIA.

Who do you enjoy following on social media? What do they do that compels people to engage and share their content?

National Geographic, for example, is one of the best on Instagram, combining stunning visuals with compelling captions.