How to create a social media strategy

Evolving a Social Media Strategy as part of your marketing plan can expand your reach, attract clients and drive improved revenues for your business.

Although most traditional businesses are yet to realize the role of social media marketing in driving business growth, a large number of forward looking businesses have already done that. And some are even reaping off the benefits of social media marketing.

As an “entrepreneur,” whether you’re running a one man business, a medium sized brick and mortar company or an “infant” start up, in today’s marketing, the role of social media in shaping the success of your business is far more crucial than it was, years ago.

So, considering its massive impact in determining a business’ growth, to make an outstanding impact with your business, you have to learn how to put in place the social media strategy that will drive results for your business.

In this article, I will be listing out the top 5 social media strategy you need to have in place to reap the benefits of social media for your business.

Why are you on Social Media?

As a business, the first step to create a social media strategy that will drive results is to identify the main outcomes you want to achieve for your business on social media. This is very important.

Although it’s understandable, the general goal for most businesses is to drive growth but, using ‘growth’ as an umbrella term for your overall purpose on social media can be pretty vague.

So you want to find out what is unique to you because this is going to shape the remaining part of your social media strategy.

It’s also going to evolve your key performance indicators and other variables you’ll use in measuring your effort at the end of the day. So you need to pay attention to identifying your goals.

For example, if your goal is to gain social media visibility or drive brand engagement, your social media strategy will slightly be different from another business whose goal is to build thought leadership or drive sales.

Whatever it is, take out time to analyze your business needs and then critically identify the goal you want to achieve on social media and how that goal is going to shape the success of your business.

Doing this will get you on the right footing to set out the remaining part of your social media plan.

PS: Your social media goals might change from time to time, depending on your business goals. You have to pay attention to this and make adjustments as necessary.

Who’s in your Audience?

If you want to create a social media strategy that works, you have to clearly identify your audience before launching out on social media.

The reason for this is not farfetched. Your choice of audience will shape your preferred social media platform, your content and mode of engagement. It will do a lot more than that if your goals are audience driven.

So, choosing a platform or creating content without identifying your audience is like putting the cart before the horse – a recipe for disaster that must be avoided by all means.

That said, to identify your audience, get over to step one. Find out the folloiwnng:

  • What are you trying to achieve by getting on the social media?
  • What kind of people can help you to achieve this?

Finding answers to the two questions above will guide you on who to look out for as members of your audience and the platform you can find them.

To learn more about how to identify your audience, you can read up this guide.

Who’s your Competition?

Your competition points the light on what’s right, what’s wrong and what you can do differently.

Since they’ve already been in the business or on the social media platform before you, there are chances that they might have known your audience, the platform they go to and the kind of content they prefer.

It’s possible they might as well have made a mistake or two, in the course of formulating their social media strategy, creating content or engaging with their audiences. You want to tap into this knowledge.

Instead of going ahead to invent the wheel yourself, learn from the experience of your competitors. Take out time to study their handles, find out what worked or what didn’t work. Or better still, innovate and get something better for your audience. That’s the advantage you have.

If you’re serious about setting out a social media strategy that actually delivers results for your business, you have to know your competition and find out what’s working for them.

What’s your top Social Media Platform?

There are a number of social media platforms out there but not all social media platforms can deliver the same results for your business.

In fact, you can’t get on all top social media platforms at the same time. So, to create a social media strategy that works, you need the social media platforms that can deliver results.

Run a quick analysis to identify your top social media platform | Credits: Pexels/RF._.studio

That said, the first step for you at this stage is to pick up your list of audience as identified in step two above. Run a quick social media analysis to find out the platform that harbors a large number of your target audience.

So for example, the following are the top 5 social media platforms and the kind of audience you can find there:

Facebook: As one of the oldest social media platform with almost 3 billion active monthly users, Facebook is by far one of the social media platforms with widely distributed demographics. Dominated with millennials between the ages of 25-34 years old who collectively make up about 31% of the audience on that platform, Facebook is made up of 43% women while men takes up the remaining 57%.

Instagram: With an active 2 billion monthly users, Instagram is made up of users between 25-34 years, accounting for 31.2% and 18-24, accounting for 31 percent respectively. With both millennials and Gen Z, accounting for more than 60 percent of users on the platform and a slightly larger female user base, Instagram favors a more picture based or video driven content.

Twitter: Largely dominated by users within the age range of 18-29 years, making up about 40 percent of all users on the platform, Twitter’s audience consists of 61.6% makes and 38.4% females. A third of Twitter’s audience has a university degree, with an earning roughly 75,000 USD annually.

Linkedin: LinkedIn, the social media marketing platform for professional has more than 810 million users. A majority of these users are between ages 25-34, making up over 58 percent of the users. With 48% females while males make up the remaining 52% users.

Tiktok: With more than 1 billion monthly active users and the largest age group (10-19) making up 25 percent of the platform, Tiktok demonstrates dominance by Gen Z and a much younger audience. However, its video focused content and 89 minutes average daily time spent on app by users are notable factors that can influence a social media strategy.

Based on the foregoing, you will notice the diversity of audience, gender, age, interest and other demographics data that can influence your choice of social media audience.

As someone trying to create better results for their business, after going through this list, identify the social media platform that will drive the best outcomes for your business before you create your social media strategy.

What’s your Content Plan?

After creating your social media strategy, the next thing on your list is to map out your content strategy.

A content strategy is a plan that guides how your content will be created and distributed to deliver your expected outcomes.

Considering that you already know your audience and the favorite social media platform they hangout, get over to find out the kind of content that works for this audience and the format.

For example, while most social media platforms are increasingly getting to create more video content, some traditional social media platforms like Facebook will do very well with a mix of text and video or pictures.

On the other hand, a more Gen Z focused social media like Tiktok and Instagram are better off with Videos and Images.

The overall goal of your content strategy is to figure out what works for your audience based on their needs and platforms and to create that kind of content for them.

As part of your content strategy, you will also have to find the best posting hours and other sub platforms you can share your content to drive traffic and engage with your audience.

Conclusion

Creating a social media strategy can be tasking but, the results are in manifolds.

As a small business, regardless of how demanding creating a social media plan might be, to put your best foot forward, you need a social media marketing strategy for your business.

And using the steps listed in this guide, you’re not only going to create a social media strategy, you will evolve a realistic plan that will deliver on your business outcomes when you follow through this guide.

While creating your social media strategy though, never underestimate the role of periodic evaluation of your outcomes, alongside your goals. This is very important as it’ll give you insight on what’s working and what’s not. And with such insights, you can always edit or overhaul your strategy, at intervals.

That said, creating a social media strategy without experience can be tasking, but working with our experts you can create a realistic strategy that will brighten your chances of achieving your outcomes. Reach out to our experts and grab a chance to work with us here.

Now, it’s your turn. What are your challenges when it comes to creating a social media strategy? Drop your comments below!

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Victor Winners

Victor Winners

Award winning Blogger, Author, Web Developer, Senior Digital Strategist and Founder of Africa's most widely read blog on Content Marketing and Digital Strategy, VictorWinners.Com.Named as one of the top 50 design influencers globally, since 2014; Victor Winners has helped over 2 million readers to understand and use digital technology to transform their lives and businesses.

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