Introduction:
The year 2020 took the world by storm when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world. The survival of many businesses became uncertain as everything shifted online. Most businesses had to adapt to this new normal of being as most people spent more time on social media than before. The year 2020 highlighted the importance of online marketing.
If you are a business owner or a personal brand, you need to have an effective digital marketing strategy in place for your business to survive in the post-Covid-19 era.
Creating a social media strategy can be quite a task and doing so may appear difficult, given how competitive and volatile social media has become.
A concise strategy will assist your brand in tackling its objectives with a clear vision. You may be posting on social media platforms for the sake of posting if you don’t have a strategy. It will be difficult to achieve results on social media unless you understand your goals, who your target audience is, and what they want.
Do you want to boost the effectiveness of your social media marketing strategy in 2021?
Now is the ideal time to take action!
What is a social media strategy and why is it important?
Social media strategy essentially is an outline of your goals, the tactics that you use to build your presence, and all the metrics that you consider. Your social media strategy should list all your existing and planned social media activities. It should define your roles and responsibilities on social media as a brand.
It is a roadmap that answers what, when, why, and how for all the content that you post on social media. Social media strategy isn’t about posting, tweeting, liking, and commenting. A social media marketing strategy, like any other digital marketing strategy, is developed long before you begin creating. It is a strategy, a collection of ideas, a goal, and the route to achieving that goal.
A strategy is an essential component of social media marketing. It necessitates an understanding of your audience, what they are looking for, how their needs correspond with your goals, and, finally, how you can entice them with an offer that gets them on board with your company.
Here are some questions to consider as you plan your online marketing strategy:
- Who is your target audience?
- How do you want people to perceive your brand?
- What type of content do you intend to share?
- What social media platforms do you want to create a presence on?
- What are your goals or expected outcomes?
Image Source: YNGmedia
Why do you need a social media strategy?
Whether you like it or not, social media sites are used by the majority of people today. They use it to connect with friends and family as well as to network with brands and businesses – social media networks facilitate global communication.
Your business must have a strong social media presence. Social media platforms give you the ability to reach out to millions of people all over the world. If you’re a small business owner who’s just getting started with social media marketing, you need to be where your current and potential customers are looking.
You might find yourself vigorously posting on social media channels without any clear results if you don’t have a strategy. It becomes easier and more effective to integrate all of your social media activity with a single focused goal once you’ve devised a social media strategy.
With so many new tools and platforms appearing all the time, it’s easy to fall into the trap of viewing social media through a tactical rather than a strategic lens. The best social media strategic plans are resources, with goals and metrics that elevate any particular social platform.
Let’s take a look at the most effective way to create a successful social strategy.
1. Define the goals that align with your business
The first step to developing a winning strategy is to define the goals. You cannot measure success if you do not have set goals and objectives. Make sure your goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. This is the S.M.A.R.T. goal structure. It will direct your actions and ensure that they result in tangible business outcomes. Your goals will determine your content strategy as well as the amount of time and effort you’ll need to devote to your campaigns.
A few of the examples of what your goals could be are mentioned below:
- Increase Brand Awareness
- Drive traffic to your website
- Build an engaged community
- Generate more leads
- Increase your target audience
Image Source: VComply
2. Research your target audience
You must know who your target audience is and the kind of content they want to consume. If a company’s social media profiles have low engagement, it’s generally because they don’t have a precise ideal audience.
Buyer personas assist you in identifying and targeting the right people, at the right times, with the right messages. It’s easier and less expensive to identify your target audience on social media or any other media if you know their age, occupation, income, interests, pains, problems, obstacles, habits, likes, dislikes, motivations, and objections.
Different social media platforms appeal to different types of people ensure that you are concentrating your efforts on social media platforms where your target audience is already present. You’ll get more conversions from every channel you use to promote your business if you’re more specific.
Image Source: Neil Patel
3. Establish KPIs
Regardless of what you’re selling, your social media strategy should be data-driven. That means concentrating on the social media metrics of importance. Rather than focusing on vanity metrics brands are being asked to dig into data that is directly related to their objectives.
How are you going to know if your efforts are making a difference? What key metrics will you use to assess the success of your social media strategy?
Selecting KPIs (key performance indicators) establishes organizational expectations for measuring the ROI of your social media marketing. The metrics include your account’s reach, the number of profile clicks, audience engagement, the performance of the hashtags you’re using, audience sentiment, and keeping track of both organic and paid likes.
A social media strategy is more akin to a long-term plan than a quick fix. Success can only be attained through patience and persistence.
Image Source: Klipfolio
4. Conduct a competitive analysis
It is 2020, chances are that your competitors already have a strong social media presence that leaves an opportunity to learn from what they’re doing. When it comes to social media marketing, conducting a competitive analysis not only keeps you up to date on what they’re doing but also gives you an idea of what’s working so you can incorporate those strategies into your campaigns.
Begin by making a list of at least three major competitors. Look up which social media platforms they use and examine their content strategy. Consider the number of fans or followers they have, the frequency with which they post, and the time of day they post.
Pay attention to the type of content they’re posting, as well as the context and how they interact with their followers.
Competitive analysis can help you figure out who your competitors are and what they do well (and not so well). You’ll get a better understanding of what’s expected in your field, which will help you set your own social media goals.
It will also help you recognize opportunities.
Image Source: Unbox Social
5. Determine which platform is suitable for your business
Many businesses create profiles on every social media platform without first determining which platform will yield the best results. By using the information from your buyer personas to determine which platform is best for you, you can avoid wasting time in the wrong place.
You know which primary and secondary social networks to focus on if your prospects or customers tell you they spend 40% of their online time on Facebook and 20% on Twitter.
You should be on a specific network when your customers are using it and not everywhere else.
Your social media tactics are determined by your goals and objectives, as well as the platform’s best practices. You’ll need to define your strategy for each social network as you decide which ones to use.
Image Source: Unbox Social
6. Ensure that your social presence is well-timed
It’s critical to share high-quality content, but it’s also critical to have a plan in place for when you’ll share it for maximum impact.
Your social media content calendar should account for the time you spend engaging with your audience. Schedule all of your posts, figure out when your audience is most active on social media and post at that time, and respond to all of your social media mentions.
Organic content is having a harder time reaching the majority of your audience as social algorithms are constantly updated.
The last thing you want to do is ignore those who do engage, as this will prevent you from sending more people through your marketing funnel.
After you’ve set up your calendar, use a scheduling tool to set up messages ahead of time rather than constantly checking throughout the day.
Image Source: Hubspot
7. Perform a social media audit for your account
A social media audit is a way to keep track of the progress of your profile on social media. It’s essential to conduct audits periodically, no matter what your goals are, to gain a better understanding of your audience. The goal of Social Media Audit is to make sure that every post you make has a purpose.
Regularly auditing your social profiles can help you see where you are now and create performance measures that will help you determine your progress more accurately in the future.
An audit examines three aspects of your profile: content, followers, and your profile’s branding. You’ll be able to tell if you’re meeting your business goals by looking at these aspects.
Image Source: LYFE Marketing
To conclude:
Developing a social media marketing strategy is one of the most difficult tasks since it necessitates taking a step back and considering the larger picture. You must redirect your focus from day-to-day duties such as scheduling and responding to comments to higher-order thinking.
However, having a social media marketing strategy can be extremely profitable and beneficial, as it ensures that you aren’t simply producing content for the sake of providing material. It will assist you in achieving your social media and business objectives.
It’s important to remember that your social media marketing plan isn’t predetermined. As time goes on, you may find that some of your strategies aren’t functioning as effectively as you had hoped. Always make every effort to adjust fast and incorporate new changes into your overall strategy.
