By: Samantha Flavell
There is a science to social media, and a winning social media strategy will include some key components that remain consistent no matter your industry. In this blog, we’re going to dive into four of these component categories you need to include when designing your social media strategy.
Getting Organized
The first step is to get organized. To have a successful campaign strategy you need to have a plan of where you want to go and how you will get there.
Define your goals: You can’t have a successful strategy unless you have clearly defined your goals and know what it is that you want to achieve. Are you trying to foster more engagement from your current audience? Are you trying to broaden your reach and increase your followers? Are you trying to maximize conversions and increase sales? Knowing your goals will help you determine what kind of content you will need to produce.
Know your audience: You can have beautiful content that’s shared every day but if it’s not designed with your audience in mind you won’t have the success you’re hoping for. Take the time to understand your audience.
What content resonates with them?
What are their pain points?
What are some demographic data about your audience such as age, location, gender, income, education level, etc.
Content Calendar: Take the time to compose your content into a calendar. This will allow you to make sure your posting is consistent, and your content is spread out and shared in an order that makes sense and is relevant to your audience.
Organization looks different for us all. These are just a few of the many ways you can set yourself up for a win by visualizing what social media success looks like for you and considering the key steps you need to take to get there.
Content is Queen
Without content, a social media strategy is just a pipe dream. You can have the best plan in place, but if you don’t create quality content the plan will not help you achieve your goals. When composing content here are three of the top considerations to keep in mind.
Consistent Branding: When your content pops up on a user's feed you want to make sure they’re able to connect the content they see with your brand. Always make sure your content has a consistent feel and tone and follows your brand style by using consistent type and color schemes.
Content Variation: From static posts to reels to videos and audio blogs, stories, and more, there are A LOT of content options out there. Each type of content holds a different purpose and works effectively for different content missions. Take the time to decide which content type will deliver your message most effectively. Using a variety of content types will help engage your audience and allow you to select the medium that will work best for each specific message you’re trying to share in that specific post.
Use hashtags strategically: Hashtags aren’t a winner for every social media platform, but when used properly, they can be a great way to make your content more visible. Select some keywords or phrases that match your content and add them to your caption. This simple step can help boost your content to the top of search queries and deliver your message to those searching on the subject.
Involve your Community
The needs of your audience should always be a top priority for you to have a successful strategy. Involving your community helps build trust, increase engagement, and allow your followers to feel seen and appreciated by your brand. Not only will this be beneficial to your brand image but it’s also a great way to help you create and distribute content without consistently having to create original material that you may not have the time or resources for.
Collaborate with Influencers: Influencer marketing is at an all-time high and is a great way to work with those around you in a mutually beneficial relationship. If you do decide to collaborate with an influencer, take the time to select someone that fits well with your brand and will be as passionate about the project as you are.
Influencer marketing allows you to distribute content created by someone else and also gives you increased exposure through the influencer’s audience. This cross-promotion will help both parties expand their reach. Remember that for a successful collaboration, both parties should benefit. Be prepared to compensate fairly for the exposure and content the influencer will produce.
User-Generated Content: Influencer marketing can get pricey. If you don’t have the biggest budget to start, user-generated content is a great way to include your audience and also share genuine, positive feedback and content with your target audience from your target audience. Take the time to check your tags and mentions on social media. If you see content shared, repost it, and be sure to thank and tag the original poster. You can also encourage the creation of user-generated content through posts and contests.
Educational Content: Don’t underestimate the power of educational content. Not only will this content solidify your stance as an expert in your industry, but it also allows a great opportunity to share resources, downloadable tip sheets, worksheets, and guides for your audience to use and share. Make sure everything is branded for your business and you will not only be providing your audience with valuable content but expanding your reach in the process.
Monitor and adjust
No social media strategy will be perfect the first time around. Once you kick off your campaign the work has just begun. Now it’s time to monitor, analyze, and adjust as needed to make sure you don’t miss the mark to achieve your goals.
Analytics and Insights: Most social media platforms will track a variety of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to help you see how your content is performing and decide what just isn’t working. Review your goals to determine what analytics will be the most important and relevant for your business and monitor them regularly to see what may need to be adjusted.
Social Listening: Read the comments, watch your engagement, and let your audience tell you what is resonating with them and what might be falling a little flat. Social media is all about engaging the right community so let your audience tell you what is working and what requires improvement.
Adjust and Evolve: Social media is ever-evolving and to be successful in the digital realm you will need to learn from mistakes and not be afraid to change with the trends and embrace the future.
To be successful in social media you need to give yourself grace and not take failures to heart. When you see something that doesn’t work don’t chide yourself for trying it but take note of what you learned and pivot your strategy to explore something else. Trial and error is the only way to learn what works best for your audience. When you succeed, you’ll realize the importance of all that you learned along the way.
Are you still stuck on how to get started with composing your social media strategy? Boone Logic can help! Learn more about our social media management services at https://www.boonelogic.com/social-media-management.
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