How to Create an Effective Social Media Marketing Strategy

A social media marketing strategy is essentially a summary of what you plan to achieve on your brand’s social media. A marketing strategy makes it easier to keep track of what you’re doing right and where you’re going wrong. An effective marketing strategy will be elaborate and specific but not unattainable. Follow these steps to create a successful social media strategy for your brand.

Set Realistic Goals

The first step to creating a marketing strategy is to establish your brand goals and objectives. Your goals should be specific to your brand and business strategy, realistic and time-bound. It is crucial to add deadlines to your goals so you can make new ones once you achieve them. This way, you will easily keep up with your progress and figure out what’s working for your business.

Know Your Audience

After setting brand goals for your social media strategy, the next step is to learn everything about your audience. The key to being successful on social media is by knowing who to target. Once you’ve found your target market, it is fairly easy to get engagement and potential customers.

You can do this by creating buyer personas and collecting real-world data. Buyer personas will make it easier to humanize your potential and existing customers while real-world demographics will help you better understand what social media platform to use and how to interact with your audience online.

Research the Competition

One of the most important parts of creating a marketing strategy is to always know what your competitors are doing. No matter what industry you belong to, chances are your competitors are already on social media – which gives you a huge
opportunity to learn. Look at what they’re doing wrong but mostly focus on which of their campaigns and strategies are working.

Set Up Account

After doing your research, it is now time to set up your social media profiles. You need to decide what channels you will use for what age group and plan out an elaborate strategy for each platform. For example, most brands use Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook for marketing and engaging purposes, but their Twitter pages are strictly for customer service.

It is entirely up to you how many social media platforms you want your brand to be on – but remember quality over quantity. You will not benefit from having 10 social media accounts if you barely get any engagement on any of them – and they will be harder to manage. It is a good idea to start with fewer channels so you can be consistent, create a loyal customer base and then spread out.

Examine Your Existing Social Media

Examining your social media from time to time will help you realize what’s working and what needs to go. You will also learn more about who’s connecting with you, and who you’re in competition with. A deep examination of your social media will also help you learn more about the right social media platform for your business and help you set realistic goals for the future.

Look for Inspiration

Once you start using social media, you will learn that inspiration is all around you. While it is important to stay unique, there is nothing wrong with drawing inspiration from other successful businesses. Another way to find inspiration is by simply asking your followers what they want. Ask your target audience what they want to talk about, what they want you to talk about and most importantly, what you can do better.

Create a Social Media Content Calendar

Sharing your content is the most important part of your social media strategy and this is why it is essential to have a plan. Creating a calendar will make it easier to post at the right time, post the right content and give you time to interact with your
target audience. Make sure your content is relevant to your business and current events that are happening around you.

Test and Adjust Your Strategy

After you’ve established your brand online, it is crucial to get feedback from your audience to see what you can work on – and what you’re doing right. You can also evaluate your brand’s social media presence by tracking your data which will help you see which posts were a hit and why. Once you’ve evaluated and tested your marketing strategy, it is time to adjust and make changes in order to refine it. Creating a social media marketing strategy is the right way to go whether you’re new in the market or have been around for a while. It will help you stay on top of things and also give you an opportunity to stay up to date with what your audience likes and what’s relevant in the market.