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There’s a lot more to social media than writing 140 characters every once in awhile. Everything you publish has the potential to be seen by thousands – even millions – of people who are somehow connected to your brand.

Every post, tweet, video and image should be stock-full of strategy. There needs to be a clear why behind everything you do. Our 2015 social media strategy template will help you see the bigger picture and strategize to turn social media into revenue for your brand.

Your template will guide you as you tackle the four key components of social media strategy below.

Listen

The first step to executing any successful social media strategy is taking the pulse of the conversations that are already out there. This is most commonly referred to as social listening.

Now that you’ve identified your competition, relevant keywords and hashtags and the demographic characteristics of your target audience, take some time to listen to the social sphere, and ask yourself the following questions:

• Who is participating in and initiating conversations around my keywords and hashtags?
• Are these the same people my brand targets demographically?
• Will getting the attention of the key players help me meet my social media objectives?
• What value can my brand add to these conversations? And how can we do it in a way that cultivates sustainable business relationships?

Create and Curate

Take into consideration the insights you gleaned from social listening. Add that to the content sources you identified in your social media strategy template, as well as your social objectives and tone.

The combination of these ingredients will guide you as you create and curate content to share on social media. Everything you post should be written and shared with two key objectives:

1. Provide valuable and actionable information to your target audience that will help them either personally or professionally.
2. Get you closer to your social media goals by positioning your brand as an industry expert, cultivating relationships with influencers and prospects, or providing a clear call-to-action.

Survey the content sources you identified on your social media strategy template and ask yourself the following questions:

• Do any posts or articles from these sources contain or directly relate to the keywords and hashtags I’ve identified?
• Based on how I’ve seen my target audience engage with said keywords and hashtags, how would they respond if I shared this content? How would it bring me closer to my social media objectives?
• How can I write content that takes a unique approach to these topics while still adding value for my target audience?

Engage

If social media were a tennis game, engagement would be the follow through. It’s crucial that with each piece of content you publish (your swing), you follow through by engaging with your audience to build relationships that could turn into mutually beneficial business partnerships. Here are some tips on how to do that well:

• Thank everyone who responds to you, whether it’s in the format of a retweet, a like, or a comment.
• Ask people questions. A thank you is nice – but it’s often the end of a conversation.
• Know who you’re engaging with. Spend some time looking at profiles of people who are engaging with you, engaging with a keyword or hashtag, or are just in your target demographic. Figure out what they’re interested in, how they use social media and start the conversation with a clear objective of where you want that relationship to go.

Act

You’ve laid the ground work. You’ve identified your social media strategy, shared some great content and engaged with key players and prospects on social media. Now it’s time to close the gap between social media management and conversion.

Let’s go back to the social media objectives you identified in your social media strategy template. Now that you’ve paved the way with prospects, it’s time to ask them to act. If your goal is sales, talk to people who’ve shown interest in your product. If it’s lead generation, publish gated content and ask people to download in exchange for their email address (sound familiar?).

Whatever your objective is, use the momentum you’re building on social media to convert conversations into revenue.

Do you have any tips for filling out your social media strategy template? Share them in the comments below!

This post originally appeared on my blog, Dog-Eared Social.