How to Create a Social Media Strategy That Delivers Results

In this step-by-step guide, we explain the essential steps to creating an exceptional social media strategy that delivers results. It covers setting clear goals, gentrifying the target audience, choosing the best platforms, creating engaging content, and measuring success.

Meaning of a Social Media Strategy

A social media strategy outlines a brand’s approach to using social media across its diverse accounts or profiles. Typically, this strategy details the kinds of material to be shared, the social media channels to be used, the target audience, the marketing objectives, and the KPIs (key performance indicators).

Why You Need A Social Media Strategy

In the same way, you need a road map for most of your journey, you also need a social media strategy because, without it, you might not reach your target.

Your social media activities may become fragmented and ineffective without a defined plan, which may also be a significant time and financial burden on the company. Having a strategy in place ensures that every activity has a purpose by serving as a template to help you focus on the goals that complement your larger business objectives.

A well-thought-out social media strategy will aid you to:

• Clearly define your priorities and objectives.
• Keep a consistent brand voice across all social media platforms.
• Enhance your content.
• To stay ahead, recognize trends and opportunities.

Related: Guides to Build an Unforgettable Social Media Brand for High Engagements

Benefits Of Social Media To Your Business

Social media is adaptable and may help your business attain its goals in a myriad of ways. Before launching any projects, think about the objectives your business wants to pursue and assess whether and how social media may help achieve them.

In Sales

The idea of using social media to increase leads or sales is where most businesses begin. This is a reasonable strategy. After all, according to HubSpot polls, one in five Gen Z, Millennial, and Gen X social media users report having made a direct purchase from a social media app in the previous three months. There are some restrictions on using social media to increase sales, though.

First, using this strategy, B2C brands typically achieve higher outcomes than B2B businesses. Secondly, no one purchases until they are familiar with and confident in a brand. This implies that before you can ask for anything from your audience on social media, you must figure out how to establish a relationship with them if you want to increase sales.

In Marketing

Optimizing your profile, posting, interacting with your audience, advertising, and tracking the outcomes are all included in the broad category of social media marketing. Its power resides in its capacity to strengthen branding, foster relationships, and raise brand awareness. Increased internet traffic, higher sales, more devoted customers, higher customer happiness, and more are all influenced by these advantages.

In Customer Service

Most social media users want brands to reply to their messages, and the majority of them want a response in less than a day. Younger populations, however, make even more use of it. For example, according to HubSpot polls, one in five Gen Z, Millennial, and Gen X social media users have DM’s a business about customer service within the last three months. Businesses increase client satisfaction and retention by incorporating customer service elements into their overall social media strategy. Providing exceptional customer service can help a brand draw in new clients and increase sales because customer service encounters frequently start in public places.

Related: 9 Steps to Building a Winning Social Media Marketing Strategy

Creating a Social Media Strategy That Delivers Results

Social media is an extremely powerful business tool. It enables you to connect with your customers, build brand awareness and drive growth. However, creating a winning social media strategy isn’t as simple as just posting content. It requires careful planning, consistent effort, and the ability to adapt to changing trends.

1. Set Clear Goals

First and foremost, you should identify your primary goals and ensure that they are both measurable and attainable. Common examples of measurable goals in social media strategies include brand awareness, website traffic, engagement, conversions, and video views. Choose what you hope to accomplish and set time-bound goals, such as increasing website visitors by 70% annually or gaining 1000 new followers in three months. If your goals turn out to be a little off the mark, don’t worry; it can be difficult to set these goals the first time, so just make sure to review them for the next time.

2. Define Your Audience

You have already established your audience and created personas in your branding efforts, but now that you know them well, you should define them in the context of the internet. Find out what platforms they use and where they reside online. How do they use these platforms? What are they interested in? Having this knowledge will be very helpful when it comes to social advertising.

3. Define Your Key Messages

Then, pinpoint your top-line messages—the “who we are and what we do” of your company or brand, distilled into a few succinct sentences—that you will attempt to convey in each piece of social media content you create. This will help you establish the key messages for your overall strategy.

4. Define Your Key Platforms

There is no need to create a profile on a social media platform that your audience doesn’t make use of, or open an account and leave it inoperative. Choose the social media platforms you want to leverage like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, TikTok, or X? Ask yourself where your audience is based and which platforms they use Remember that each social media platform has its purpose, style, and audience, and you need to make sure it aligns with your business objectives.

5. Define Your Strategic Activities

Planning your social media activities is where we start to delve into the specifics of your strategy. Plan the actions, projects, and activities you will take to achieve your goals after considering your audience, your objectives, and your main messages. You do this by taking a target, and then strategically preparing specific activities to achieve this goal. Will you engage in social listening? Would you be able to reach your audience with influencer marketing? Blogging might be able to increase website visitors. There’s enough to get enthusiastic about here, but always remember your goals, target audience, and main points.

6. Schedule Your Social Media Activities

The next step is to plan out your year’s worth of social media marketing initiatives. Determine the most important times for your company, consider holidays or events you wish to include, choose when to launch particular promotions, and set aside time for activity reviews. Setting this up as a calendar for the entire year is helpful.

7. Create Content For Your Brand

It’s now time to produce the blogs, pictures, videos, graphics, and other content required to implement your plan. Ensure that your material is high-quality, valuable, and platform-specific. Each platform has its distinct content forms, but there may also be variations in messaging, tone, and copywriting. Consider your content strategy, including the type of blogs you plan to create, the utilization of user-generated material, and the ways you plan to reuse evergreen content for various purposes. Schedule time for content production several times a year.

8. Roll Out Your Strategy

You are now prepared to implement your plan on all of your social media platforms! Here, you implement your plan by adhering to your marketing calendar, publishing content, running advertisements, and completing planned tasks. To aid in the rollout process, you may want to check out social scheduling apps like Later, Hootsuite, and TweetDeck.

9. Measuring and Monitoring

It’s critical to continuously assess and track results during campaign rollout to identify the most successful content and strategy. Instead of simply publishing your material and then forgetting about it, make sure you are reviewing it to determine what worked and what didn’t, then adjust your strategy accordingly. Monitoring the results is crucial while running social ads, especially to see if they are slowing down, if the cost per result is increasing, or if the frequency of delivery is becoming excessive. Pause, act, and switch things up if they’re not working well.

10. Review and Analysis

The last phase! Make sure you evaluate your activity on all social media platforms and at various points of the year. Examine your outcomes by conducting a 360-degree review of your sales statistics, website analytics, and social insights. Make sure to plan review sessions following each campaign throughout the year and closely examine the advertising’s outcomes to determine whether it was successful. What could you do better? Did you accomplish your goal? Were your goals realistic and were they met?

Related: Why Use Social Media Marketing? | Benefits for Businesses of All Sizes

Ways to Increase Social Media Post Engagement

You ought to know how to plan and deploy more clearly by now. Let’s quickly review some pointers that can improve your approach to social media involvement.

Maintain the Same Username Across All Channels

If you use the same username everywhere you go, people will find your brand and engage with you much more easily.

Communicate Genuinely

According to Social Media Today, 90% of respondents believe that authenticity is crucial when choosing which brands to support and like, and they can tell when a brand is just lip service rather than genuine. Everyone who speaks for your business should embody the brand voice and act in a way that aligns with its values.

Add Interactivity to Your Posts

Creating interactive content for your social media posts is one of the best ways to increase engagement. This comprises elements such as:

• Surveys and polls, as well as competitions
• Answers to Blank Questions
• Videos in Real Time and Calculators

Post Regularly

Make a plan for the days you will post and follow the timetable in your content calendar.

Make Use of the Proper Hashtags

According to HubSpot, almost half of marketers do not use hashtags, despite the fact that they increase the discoverability of your content. Choose the ones that are most appropriate for your brand by doing some research, then incorporate them into your posts and bios.

Have a Visual

Almost half prefer to view brand content in photos, and over one-third prefer to watch brand content in video, according to Statista. More involvement results directly from satisfying this preference. According to the company, posts on LinkedIn with photographs receive 98% more comments. Using visual material in tweets increases engagement threefold, according to Twitter representatives.

Ensure Your Social Content Adds Value Daily

Make sure every article you share offers the reader something of value, whether it’s a tip, a laugh, or a request for their opinions to enhance your products. They are more inclined to interact with and share your material if it is valuable.

Related: Inspiring Social Media Campaigns Examples: Learn From the Best

Strategy Template

A strategic plan serves as your company’s growth roadmap. To help you succeed, use this tried-and-true strategic plan template. The guide below outlines the 13 essential components that your strategic plan has to have.

1. The Executive Summary

The last part of your strategic plan should be the Executive Summary, which is just a summary of the other parts of the plan.

Other critical stakeholders, like employees, advisors, and investors, will be able to rapidly comprehend and support your plan with the help of the Executive Summary.

2. Elevator Pitch

Your business is briefly described in an elevator pitch. Your strategic plan includes your elevator pitch because it is essential to the success of your company and should frequently be revised every year. This is why it’s crucial: you will undoubtedly lose out on a ton of sales and other possibilities if your staff members are unable to accurately and succinctly explain your company to others.

3. The Company’s Mission Statement

The goals of your organization are outlined in your mission statement. It might not seem significant, but it is. You see, when it comes to internal decision-making, your mission statement helps staff members make the best choices that will help the business fulfill its goals. Your purpose can motivate external stakeholders, including partners, investors, and customers, to execute the activities you desire.

4. SWOT

In your strategic plan must include a SWOT analysis (which is an examination of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to enable you to discover the best possible ways to achieve your business growth objectives. It will also help you to determine which strengths you have to build on in the future to make your business thrive.

5. Goals

The hallmark of successful businesses is goal-setting and achievement, which is also a crucial component of your strategic plan.

The most important thing is to first determine your long-term or five-year goals. After that, decide what you need to accomplish in the upcoming year to make it successful and set your business up for success in reaching your five-year goals.

Your targets for the upcoming quarter and month will then be determined by working backward twice more. This part should ideally be modified every month when you update your strategic plan.

6. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Excellent companies are aware of their KPIs and measurements. By monitoring your KPIs, you may make necessary adjustments and see how well your company is doing.

7. Target Customers

The demands and desires of each of your target client groups will be determined in this portion of your strategic strategy. This is crucial for concentrating your marketing efforts and increasing the return on your advertising investment. This is due to the fact that you will be more successful in drawing in your target audience if you can “speak” directly to their needs and desires in your marketing.

8. Industrial Analysis

A thorough study of the state of your market is not necessary for your industry analysis. To make sure the market is expanding (if not, you may wish to diversify) and to find fresh growth prospects, you need to do an analysis.

9. Analysis of Competition and Advantage

Your competition analysis doesn’t have to be a comprehensive study that includes every detail about every competitor, just like your industry analysis. Instead, you should identify your main rivals and include a list of their advantages and disadvantages.

Above all, make use of this study to identify your existing competitive advantages and strategies for creating new ones.

10. Plan for Marketing

I advise you to create a thorough marketing plan that outlines how you will draw in prospects, turn them into paying customers, and increase your lifetime customer value in addition to your strategic plan.

Your strategic plan should include a synopsis of your marketing strategy.

11. Company’s Team

Your strategic plan’s team section makes sure you have the manpower to take advantage of the opportunities you’ve found and accomplish the objectives you set in section 5.

Listing your current team members and determining the kinds of individuals you will need to hire in the upcoming year to meet your objectives should be done here.

12. Plan of Operations

You can turn your objectives and chances into reality with the aid of your operations strategy. The individual initiatives that make up your overarching objectives will be listed in this portion of your plan, along with the methods by which they will be accomplished. To determine when each project will begin and who will oversee it, you will lastly plan out each of your endeavors, ideally in a Gantt chart.

13. Financial Projections

Your financial projections are the last part of your strategic plan. Your financial forecasts are useful in several ways. First, you can evaluate the possible outcomes of every opportunity you think about pursuing using a financial model.

Additionally, your financial predictions will outline the objectives once you decide which possibilities to pursue. For instance, you’ll be able to determine just how many new clients you need to bring in and at what price point to meet your target for the following month.

Related: How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy – Get Free Templates

Conclusion

Although creating a social media strategy can be challenging, the results are consistently quite positive. To present your brand in the best possible light, you must have a social media marketing strategy in place, no matter how difficult it may be to create one. By following the guidelines in this blog post, you will not only create a social media strategy but also a practical plan that will consistently meet your business objectives.

Never undervalue the importance of regularly evaluating your results in addition to your objectives when creating your social media strategy, though, as this will help you identify what is and is not working and allow you to make necessary adjustments or revisions.