At Founders Media, strategy is our jammm. Here is our lucky 7 Step process to create your own social media strategy.
1. Set goals
First things first, before you set up any accounts and start posting, ask yourself, “How can social media help my business?
Here are some ideas:
- Build brand awareness
- Boost your reach
- Grow an engaged community
- Generate leads
- Turn followers into loyal customers
- Drive traffic to your website
- Influence
Then wait for it….
Yes – everyone’s favourites! Add SMART goals to each idea that you chose.
Specific → Choose outcomes that are quantifiable.
Measurable → Numbers matter. Track your progress, celebrate success.
Attainable → Are these realistic?
Relevant → How do your goals fit in with your mission/purpose?
Time-bound → Set a deadline
2. Understand your audience
Break down your target audience(s) by:
- Demographics: age, gender, location, job, education
- Psychographics: values, interests, behaviors, beliefs
Getting a handle on your ideal client will be key for your strategy since certain social media platforms, hashtags, tones of voice, etc. can cater to specific populations. Every marketing or business book you read will tell you the same thing – Create “personas” (i.e. the archetype of your target customer). Making personas can help you better understand each audience’s unique wants and needs and then you can shape your future captions like you are speaking directly to them.
3. Competitor Analysis
It’s good to know what else is out there and how the competition is performing.
What do their profiles look like? What hashtags are they using? How often do they post? Do they utilize specific keywords, etc. You can take this information and use it to help you differentiate yourself from the crowd.
4. Audit & Optimize your current social media and platforms
If you already have social media accounts on various platforms, have a look at what’s going well and what can improve. What platforms resonate the best with your target audience? What kind of content garners the most engagement, leads, or traffic to your website? Hootsuite offers a great social media audit template to guide you through the process.
*** If you’re a smaller business, don’t feel pressured to be everywhere all at once. In fact, we would say don’t even try to. You can make a strategic impact in a few niche spaces that will give you a greater ROI than spreading yourself too thin.
Figure out what makes sense for your brand, your audience, and your goals. For example, if your target audience is predominantly Millennials, you definitely want to be on Instagram. If your target audience is Gen Z, you definitely want to have a presence on TikTok since people aged 16-25 tend to search TikTok even before turning to Google.
5. Create a content calendar.
Set a posting schedule that is manageable for you or your team. Did you know there are management programs like Later, Hootsuite, and Planoly that allow you to schedule posts in advance)?
With this calendar, divide up your content so you’ve got a balanced mix of educational, inspiring, and engaging content because believe it or not, social media isn’t just there for you to advertise. In fact, people are sick of feeling “sold to” on social media.
Social media is a tool that can be used by businesses and brands to connect with their customers on a deeper level. Networking tools like DM’s, commenting, and liking enable us to hear from and speak directly to our community.
6. Compile Brand Assets
This should be everything from brand photoshoots (speaking of, have you scheduled your next shoot with Britt?), customer reviews, video footage (behind-the-scenes, tour of your space, how-to’s, etc.), and aesthetics (fonts, colors, language, etc.). The reason being is that the more options you have to pull from, the less you’ll have to scramble for at the last minute. And we’ve all been there before. So, the more content, the better—just make sure everything is organized into folders and titled appropriately so it’s easy to find!
7. Analyze Performance & Adjust
Social media strategy is a never-ending process. You’re in it for the long game. After you’ve followed through with your content calendar for a few weeks, check out those platform analytics (pro tip: When you create a “business account,” you’ll get to see even more detailed data). Interpret and try to make sense of as much as you can.
You can look for:
When was the best time to post?
What content garnered the most engagement, website traffic, or new followers?
What other insights can you pick up about your target audience?
As you keep up with the process of creating, posting, analyzing, and rinse and repeat, you’ll start to see your stats increase (leads, traffic, click-thru-rate, new followers, shares, etc.).
We hope you’ve found this helpful and don’t forget that at Founders Media, strategy is our jammm. If you need support with any of this, we can help. Schedule a discovery call with us and let’s get the party started!