How do you Write a Social Media Strategy? Here are 5 Easy Steps to Follow

Social Media Strategy Planning

Just like you can’t build a house without a blueprint, you can’t do social media without a strategy. A Social Media strategy summarizes your plans, goals, tactics, content, and everything you hope to achieve on social media. It gives you an outline to keep in mind when planning your social media posts and messaging. The more specific you get, the better the results.

Let’s go over 5 steps to help you build a social media strategy. 

1. Set Goals

Take a look at your business or your client’s business objective first and set S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals. It’s important to understand what you are looking to gain from social media. 

Here are some examples of marketing goals:

  • Increase brand awareness

  • Drive traffic to your website

  • Grow revenue by increasing sign-ups or sales

  • Build a community and increase engagement

  • Interact with customers and increase engagement

social media strategy

You can have more than one goal, and that’s okay; there is no limit as long as you clearly define them. Without goals, you cannot measure success or your ROI (return on investment). 

2. Research 

Competitors

Your competitors have a social media strategy, see what they are doing.

Search on Google and social media platforms for your competitor(s) and see what they post on social media, review their profiles, and get an idea of their channels. Don’t have a competitor in mind? No problem, find an inspiring page or a person. Maybe you have recently noticed an Instagram account that caught your eye with its aesthetic or messaging; write that down.

Make a list of your competitors or accounts that you would like your account to mirror. This will help give you an idea of what your social media should resemble.

Audience

Who is your target audience? Ask yourself this question. Who would be your ideal follower? If you are selling plant pots, you may define your audience as plant lovers, and you can even get very specific by looking into demographics and creating a persona. Your target audience can be a plant lover between the ages of 25-35, living in the suburbs of Ontario, Canada. The more specific you get, the easier it will be to find your audience on social media. 

3. Decide on a Social Media Platform

Now that you have an idea of your goals, inspiration, and target audience – it’s time to choose the right platform(s) for your business. Each social media platform is unique with its various audiences. You don’t have to be on every social media platform.

You can choose just one or have multiple channels as long as it meets your goals. You may select Instagram to post high-resolution images or fun reels, Facebook to engage with your audience in a community group, TikTok to connect with Gen Z, Twitter for a quick announcement and/or LinkedIn to make that professional connection. You get to decide!

PRO TIP: Choose the platform that your target audience gravitates toward.

4. Measure and Adjust your Social Media Strategy

How will you know if you’re successful if you don’t measure? It’s important to keep track of your progress on social media, but going back to goals, you need to assign specific numbers. For example, if you want to gain more followers on Instagram, instead of writing down “more followers,” put down a number like looking to gain 10,000 by the end of the year.

If you use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your website, you might want to measure the click-through rate. You can keep track of your metrics weekly, monthly and quarterly. Measuring will help you adjust your strategy. TIP: It’s not all about followers but about how people engage with your content.

social media strategy

5. Create a Content Calendar 

Research content you would like to write. Plan out the type of content (interview, how-to, story, entertainment), note significant and seasonal dates, use your analytics to plan out the best time to post, identify keywords and hashtags, and put it all together in a content calendar.

PRO TIP: Keep in mind that people use social media in their downtime. They love genuine, emotion-based, authentic content and content that will teach them something new. 

This is an opportunity to ask yourself if you will be doing just organic posts or running Ads.

Read our latest blog on creating a social media calendar to learn more.

Now you are equipped with the 5 main elements of a social media strategy. Are you ready to get started?