How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy
A vital part of effective social media marketing is having a strategy( a strong social media strategy).
Likewise to how most salty dishes won’t taste right without them, your social media platforms will always taste a little odd if you don’t have a strategy. It will be challenging to gain results on social media if you don’t understand the basic principles, such as your goals, target audience, and preferences.
On the other side, a social media marketing agency may assist you with building engaged audiences where they hang out, creating a variety of traffic sources that consistently bring in clients, and expanding your company through the strength of online networks.
If you want to advance as a marketer or build your brand, creating a social media marketing strategy is crucial.
Below is one method that involves five steps.
The 5-Step Process for Creating a Social Media Marketing Plan
It’s interesting to observe the various connections between a social media marketing strategy and a marketing plan.
See this in this way: A strategy is what you are moving towards. And with a plan, you will get there.
The easiest way to create an effective social media marketing strategy is by asking yourself the 5 Ws:
- Why are you interested in using social media?
- Who is your target audience?
- What will you be sharing?
- What will you be sharing?
- When are you going to share?
Another fascinating component of strategy (or strategies) is this: In addition, you can develop a strategy for each of your social media platforms, such as a Facebook marketing plan or an Instagram marketing plan, all of which are built around your overall social media marketing plan.
Let’s begin with your overall strategy.
1 Why does your company want to use social media?
The why is the first question to be addressed.
Do you promote your products on social media? to encourage visitors to your website? or to better help your customers?
There are generally nine social media objectives that you can have:
- Boost awareness of your brand.
- Increase website traffic
- Welcome fresh leads
- Increasing brand engagement
- Generate revenues( by boosting sales or signups)
- Create a community that supports your company.
- Deliver attentive customer service.
- Boost media coverage.
- Listens to discussions regarding your brand
You might have multiple social media goals in mind, and that’s totally normal.
In general, it’s wonderful to concentrate on a small number of goals, unless you have a team where several people or teams can take on different objectives.
As an example, the social media marketing agency team at TechMozo uses social media to promote our brand and increase traffic to our content, while the support team uses it to offer quick customer service.
2. Who is your target audience?
The next thing to consider is your target audience after determining your why.
Knowing your target audience will make it easier for you to respond to the following inquiries: What, where, and when you will interact?
For example, if a travel and lifestyle company (like Away) is aware that its intended audience enjoys reading about new places and travel advice, it may share such content on its social media sites.
Building marketing personas is an incredible exercise to do here.
Marketing personas can be created in many different ways. Again, using the 5Ws and 1H is my recommended strategy.
- Who are they? Gender, age, geographic location, salary, occupation, etc.
- What do you have to offer that they would find interesting? For example, educational content, information about fresh products, case studies, and entertainment
- Where do they usually hang out online? For example, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, or niche platforms
- Why do they consume the content? For example, to improve their performance at work, to improve their health, to stay current with events, etc.
- How do they consume the content? For example, browse social media, watch videos, etc.
It’s likely unnecessary to start from scratch. Your target market is probably something you already have a clear idea of if your business has been functioning for some time. Having it on paper can help you share it with the team or use it as a resource in the future.
3- What will you post on social media?
When you see this kind of question, you might wonder what types of content to share. For instance, are you interested in sharing videos and images?
Wait a minute here.
Let’s take a step back and consider something broader about your social media marketing strategy. “Theme” might be a better term than “content types to share.”
Below are a few companies and their root themes:
- An underwear company called MeUndies posts customer images and product images on its Instagram account.
- An outdoor and adventure brand called Huckberry posts editorial content and excellent outdoor images on its Facebook page.
- Luxury couch company Burrow’s Instagram page focuses mainly on memes.
If you look through the social media profiles of the above-mentioned brands, you might have observed that the brands use more than one core theme.
It’s good to have a few themes that give you the freedom to share a variety of content to keep your audience interested without appearing unfocused.
This is the point where your knowledge of your target audience will be beneficial. Take a look at your marketing personas and give the following questions some thought:
- What goals and challenges do they face?
- How can you help resolve them?
When you know the answer to these questions, you know the goal of your business target audience.
4- Where Are You Going To Share?
The next step to moving further is to figure out where you would like to share your content. To put it another way, which platforms of social media does your company want to be on?
Before we continue, keep in mind that not every social media site is necessary for your brand to be present. Given that the Big Four—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn—often appeared on Google’s first page of search results when users searched for your brand.
Knowing your target audience will let you decide what to share. Which platforms does your audience hang out on more? What attracts them to visit that platform? As an example, young adults and teens may enjoy scrolling through TikTok to check what their pals are up to or what things their favourite creators are using.
Another, yet smaller, thing to think about is, What is the “X factor” of your brand? Are you good at filming videos, writing content, or photography? Certain content types work best on specific platforms. For example, pictures on Instagram, long-form videos on YouTube, and short-form videos on TikTok are all excellent.
5. When will you share?
Choosing the best time to release or share your content is the final crucial component of your social media strategy. You might be tempted to start looking at the best time(s) to post right away.
Pause. and take a breath.
Take a step back and examine this situation once more from a higher perspective. Consider your target audience’s behaviour before choosing precisely what time of day and which days of the week you want to post.
What time of day do they often use social media to find the stuff or content you’ll share?
- Fans of sports are likely on social media networks before, during, and right after the event occurs and read content about the event( updates, who wins, etc.).
- Athletes might be browsing Instagram. while they are chilling out after their morning or nighttime workouts.
- Travellers may be more active on social media over the weekends while organising their upcoming vacation (or during their lunch breaks when daydreaming about it).
- Nursing mothers may browse social media in the early hours of the night.
These few situations may have given you the impression that there isn’t really a single best time to post because it depends on your audience. Therefore, at this stage, pay attention to your target audience’s general behavioural habits.
Bonus: How Will You Execute This Social Media Strategy?
Now you have it—your social media marketing strategy.
But it doesn’t end there. As was already mentioned above, a strategy is what you are moving towards. And with a plan, you will get there. Now that you know where you’re going, you need a plan.
How should your social media profiles be completed? What tone and pitch should you use? What post type should you use, such as an image, link, video, etc.?
We offer a step-by-step guide for creating a good social media marketing strategy for your advantage and the success of your social media campaigns.
Keep The Big Picture In Mind When Designing a Social Media Marketing Strategy.
Developing a strategy is one of the most challenging things to do because it requires considering all the factors related to social media mentioned above. And also demands that we step back and look at the big picture.
You must refocus your attention on higher-level thinking (and let TechMozo handle this) in order to avoid being distracted by routine tasks like scheduling and responding to comments.
However, hiring a social media marketing company will immensely benefit you and ensure that you aren’t just posting content. Your social media and business goals will be achieved as well.