A social media strategy is a comprehensive plan detailing the content your business will post, the roles and responsibilities of your social media team, and the channels you will use to promote your brand. This strategy includes specific goals that align with your overall digital marketing objectives. Social media marketing involves leveraging platforms like Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), and Facebook to promote your brand and sell your products or services.

For instance, promoting a new product launch on social media, interacting with customers via comments, and creating engaging content that highlights your brand’s values and story are all examples of social media marketing.

Effective social media marketing requires management skills and tools, and it should be as well-planned as other aspects of your marketing strategy. Now, let’s dive into how to create a social media strategy.

A social media strategy serves as a master plan for creating, posting, and engaging with your social media content. It includes guidelines for content creation, posting schedules, marketing campaigns, target audiences, and engagement tactics to promote your business and brand.

Many businesses use social media to connect with customers, provide support, advertise new products, and promote special offers.

What is a Social Media Marketing Strategy?

A social media marketing strategy is a detailed plan for using social media platforms to promote your offerings and stand out in a crowded digital market. It’s not a quick sketch but a thorough document outlining how you’ll use social media to achieve your business goals.

When creating your strategy, start by answering these three key questions:

• What are your goals? Ensure your social media efforts align with your business objectives, whether it’s driving sales, boosting engagement, or increasing brand visibility.
• Who is your audience? Understand your target audience and tailor your content to resonate with them. Your messages should effectively reach and engage your desired demographic.
• What is the competition doing? Analyze your competitors’ social media strategies. Learn from their successes and failures to carve out your unique approach. Inspiration is good, but originality is key.

The purpose of this strategy is to guide your online activities so that every post, comment, and share has a clear purpose.

Benefits of a Social Media Strategy

A social media strategy helps channel creativity effectively, ensuring your online efforts translate into tangible business benefits:

• Increase Sales: Effective social media content can drive traffic to your website or store, converting visitors into paying customers through strategic middle- and bottom-funnel content.
• Boost Engagement: Well-planned content not only garners views but also generates meaningful interactions like shares, comments, and conversations, enhancing brand awareness and trust.
• Track Preferences: Metrics such as reach, engagement, conversion rates, and ROI provide insights into the effectiveness of your content, allowing you to refine and scale successful strategies.
• Build Communities: Your brand can foster communities where enthusiasts rally around your offerings and spread the word.
• Gather Feedback: Digital communities offer valuable insights into customer preferences, helping you understand what they love, want, or wish to change.
• Support Cross-Functional Efforts: A cohesive social media strategy amplifies the efforts of other departments, whether launching a new product, enhancing a PR campaign, or driving attendance to events.

By having a well-defined social media strategy, you ensure that your online presence is purposeful, effective, and aligned with your overall business objectives.

1. Establish a Clear Purpose

The foundation of a successful social media strategy is a clear purpose. Start by defining your goals, whether it’s expanding your team, building a larger following, or fostering a more active community. Clearly outlined social goals are the first step toward achieving them.

Your goals will shape your social media marketing strategy and determine the time and effort required for your campaigns.

Many social media managers make the mistake of throwing random tactics at the wall to see what sticks—giveaways for short-term engagement, services promising followers and likes, or jumping on the latest trends. These approaches often lack a clear purpose.

To effectively leverage social media marketing for your brand, set SMART goals—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bound. Examples of SMART goals for your social media strategy include:

• Achieve a 20% growth in social media engagement within six months through targeted advertising and influencer partnerships to enhance brand awareness.
• Increase website traffic by 15% and online sales by 10% within three months by implementing effective call-to-action (CTA) strategies and conversion tracking on Facebook, Instagram, and X (Twitter).
• Increase Customer Inquiries: Within four months, boost customer inquiries through social media channels by 25% by incorporating interactive Q&A sessions, engaging stories, and live chat features on Instagram and Facebook.
• Enhance Content Reach: Over the next five months, improve the reach of your content by 30% by implementing a consistent posting schedule, leveraging hashtags, and collaborating with micro-influencers on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Having an overarching purpose simplifies the rest of your strategy planning. It also allows for adjustments to your social media strategy without losing sight of your long-term goals. Each time you make a social media decision, ask yourself: does this align with the purpose? If yes, proceed; if not, discard it.

2. Understand Your Target Audience

Before crafting your social media strategy, it’s essential to identify and understand your target audience. Knowing who you want to see your content (and whether they want to see it) is crucial. If your company already has a good grasp of your target consumer, great—use that research to inform your social media strategy. If not, create an audience persona to flesh out their “character,” much like profiling in true crime.

Every aspect of your strategy—from which platforms you use and when you post to the metrics you track—should be oriented toward your target audience.

Aim to create a strategy that answers these questions:

• Is your strategy respectful of your audience’s backgrounds and experiences, and what value does it add to their lives?
• What do you hope they take away from your content, and what are they hoping to take away from it?
• What existing knowledge do you expect them to have, and what can you teach them?

3. Select Your Networks

Making assumptions can lead to missteps in marketing. Instead, leverage valuable insights from social data. With the right tools, marketers can quickly research their audience without needing formal market research or data science expertise.

Your audience insights are already available; you just need to know where to look.

Different Platforms Attract Different Audiences

Understanding the demographics and nuances of each social network is crucial. Here are some key statistics to inform your 2024 social media marketing strategy:

• Instagram: With 2 billion active users worldwide, Instagram is particularly popular among teens aged 13-17.
• Pinterest: Over 60% of Pinterest’s global audience are women, with Gen Z and Millennials using the platform the most.
• X (formerly Twitter): X has over half a billion monthly monetizable active users, with an average usage time of 31 minutes per session.
• LinkedIn: A hub for in-depth, industry-specific content, LinkedIn is the top platform for B2B lead generation, with 4 out of 5 members driving business decisions.
• TikTok: 78% of TikTok users have purchased a product after seeing it on the platform, and 73% feel a deeper connection to brands they interact with on TikTok.
• YouTube: As one of the most popular search engines, YouTube has billions of monthly users across 80 languages and 100+ countries.

These statistics can help you decide where your business needs to be. While bigger brands may have a presence on multiple platforms, mid-size and small businesses should focus on the platforms most relevant to their audience.

Overview of Major Social Platforms

X (formerly Twitter):

Simple and straightforward, X is great for businesses starting with social media. It requires minimal setup and is excellent for direct interaction with followers. It’s ideal for mastering hashtags, tagging, brand voice, and social media etiquette.

Facebook:

Essential for brick-and-mortar businesses targeting local customers. It allows for check-ins, reviews, and has robust chatbot functionality for customer service and marketing campaigns. Despite challenges from algorithm changes, Facebook’s ad platform is highly effective.

Instagram:

A visually-focused network perfect for brick-and-mortar businesses, e-commerce shops, and influencers. It encourages creative ways to showcase products through photos and captions.

Threads:

Launched by Meta in July 2023, Threads quickly became the most downloaded app ever. It’s a text-based network that integrates seamlessly with Instagram accounts and is available on both mobile and desktop.

LinkedIn:

Focused on business trends and networking, LinkedIn is invaluable for B2B marketing. It’s excellent for content distribution, lead generation, and connecting with industry professionals.

Pinterest:

Highly popular among Gen Z and Millennials, Pinterest thrives on imagery and inspirational content. It’s one of the best platforms for social selling.

YouTube:

Although not traditionally viewed as a social network, YouTube’s active community and video content make it essential. Video content performs well across nearly every social network, making YouTube a great place to host your videos.

TikTok:

With 1 billion users as of September 2021, TikTok is known for its viral trends and hyper-personalized algorithm. It offers brands a unique way to connect with customers through short-form video content.

By understanding your target audience and the nuances of each social network, you can create a more effective social media strategy. Focus on the platforms that align with your audience and business goals, ensuring your content is seen by the right people.

4. Research Your Competitors

While everyone wants to feel like a unique, creative genius, remember that all innovation is inspired by something. However, instead of just copying your competitors, analyze their strategies to understand the reasoning behind their actions.

When filling out your social media strategy template, consider these questions:

• Who are your competitors targeting?
• Why is their strategy effective?
• What social media platforms are they using and why?
• What platforms are they not using and why?
• How frequently do they post content on each platform?
• Do they reply to comments?
• What is the ratio of posts that are promotional versus those that are fun, interesting, or educational?

Identify gaps and opportunities that your competitors—regardless of their success—aren’t leveraging. What are they missing that could appeal to your target customers?

For example, if you’re a vegan restaurant and other vegan establishments only post food images, you could diversify your content. While they may have followers, likes, and sales, you can offer more by posting behind-the-scenes videos, recipe tutorials, and customer stories with rich, engaging captions, similar to the Humans of New York style, to showcase your brand beyond the menu.

Or consider a simpler approach: If a competitor’s posts lack engagement and they never include discussion questions in their captions, try ending your captions with a question to encourage comments and increase engagement.

5. Establish Your Most Important Metrics and KPIs

Regardless of your goals or industry, your social media strategy should be data-driven. Focus on metrics that align directly with your goals rather than vanity metrics.

Here’s an overview of key metrics:

• Reach: The number of unique users who saw your post. Understanding how much of your content actually reaches users’ feeds is crucial.
• Clicks: The number of clicks on your content or account. Tracking clicks per campaign helps identify what drives curiosity or encourages people to take action.
• Engagement: The total number of social interactions divided by the number of impressions. This metric reveals how well your audience perceives you and their willingness to interact.
• Hashtag Performance: Track your most-used hashtags and those most associated with your brand. This information can help shape your future content.
• Organic and Paid Likes: Beyond counting Likes, distinguish between those from organic and paid content. This helps budget both ad spend and the time invested in different formats.
• Sentiment: Measure how users react to your content, brand, or hashtags. Assess whether your campaigns are positively or negatively received.
• Video Views: This varies by platform but generally refers to the number of views your videos receive. Understanding video engagement metrics is essential if video is part of your strategy.
• Follower Growth: Measure the net new followers you gain over a specific time frame. This helps demonstrate the value and ROI of your campaigns and content.
• Follower Growth Rate: This percentage shows how quickly your audience is growing or declining over time.
• Reply Time: The time it takes for your team to respond to customer messages or mentions.
• Total Response Volume: The total number of responses your team sends to customers.
• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): Measure how satisfied customers are with your product, service, or brand. Use social messaging to survey customers about their likelihood to refer your business.
• Impressions: The number of times content is displayed to users. This indicates how well you’re promoting your account, content, and campaigns.
• Brand Mentions: Track how often your brand is mentioned in posts or comments, whether tagged directly or not.
• Share of Voice (SOV): Indicates your brand’s market position compared to competitors. It helps understand your brand’s dominance in industry conversations.
• Conversion Rate: Measures how many people take a desired action on social, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.

An effective social media marketing strategy is rooted in these metrics, which need to be contextualized to align with your original goals. Conduct regular analytics reports to interpret these metrics, ensuring your efforts align with your vision.

6. Conduct a Social Media Audit

For marketers, analytics are the cornerstone of our work (if you’re suddenly feeling hungry, that’s why). A social media audit reveals the data driving your efforts.

It’s wise to conduct an audit of your accounts before launching a campaign to gauge your starting point. Equally important is performing an audit after each campaign to assess the effectiveness of your strategy.

In addition to tracking your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), here are some elements to monitor during your audit:

• The types of content you’re posting and on which platforms
• The level of engagement each post receives
• Your follower count (and any changes)
• Feedback from positive or negative comments
• Whether you’re effectively reaching your target audience

While a human perspective is valuable for some aspects, leveraging a social media management tool can streamline the auditing process, particularly for more detailed analysis.

7. Perfect Your Publishing Cadence

If you send me an email at 5 p.m. on a Friday, expect a response Monday morning at the earliest. And if you bombard me with 11 messages that could’ve been consolidated into one, there’s a chance they’ll all end up in the trash.

The same principle applies to your social media strategy. The timing and frequency of your posts can significantly impact their performance. Here’s how to determine and perfect a publishing cadence that works best for your brand:

Analyze Peak Times: Understanding when your audience is most active is crucial for maximizing engagement. Use built-in analytics tools on social platforms like Instagram Insights or Facebook Analytics, or external tools like HubSpot, Hootsuite, or Later. These tools can provide valuable data on the best days and times to post.

• Time Zones: Consider the time zones of your audience. If you have a global audience, you might need to post at different times to reach all segments effectively.
• Holidays and Events: Engagement patterns can vary during holidays or special events. Adjust your schedule accordingly to maintain relevance.

Prioritize Quality Over Quantity: Posting high-quality content a few times a week is far more effective than flooding your audience with low-quality posts.

• Content Value: Each post should offer value—whether it’s educational, entertaining, or engaging. Quality content encourages shares, comments, and likes.
• Visual Appeal: Ensure your posts are visually appealing, well-crafted, and aligned with your brand’s aesthetic and message.

Test and Learn: Experimentation is key to finding the optimal posting schedule.

• A/B Testing: Post at different times and days, then track which times garner the most engagement. This helps identify patterns and preferences of your audience.
• Monitor Metrics: Focus on metrics like reach, engagement rate, and click-through rate to understand which times and days work best.

Plan Ahead with a Content Calendar: A content calendar is essential for organizing your posting schedule and ensuring a consistent flow of content.

• Scheduling Tools: Use tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, or Sprout Social to schedule posts in advance. This allows for better planning and ensures you maintain a consistent presence.
• Visual Planning: Choose a tool that lets you preview your feed to ensure your posts align visually and thematically.

Stay on Top of Trends: Social media is dynamic, and staying current with trends can boost your visibility and engagement.

• Trending Topics: Keep an eye on trending topics and hashtags relevant to your brand. Participating in these conversations can increase your reach and relevance.
• Real-Time Adjustments: Be flexible with your content calendar. If a trend emerges that’s relevant to your audience, adjust your planned content to include it.
• Content Flexibility: Leave some space in your schedule for spontaneous posts or last-minute changes to take advantage of current events or trends.

Perfecting your publishing cadence involves a blend of strategic planning, continuous experimentation, and flexibility. By analyzing peak times, prioritizing quality, testing different schedules, planning ahead with a content calendar, and staying on top of trends, you can optimize your social media strategy for maximum engagement and reach. Remember, the goal is to consistently provide valuable content that resonates with your audience while being adaptable to the ever-changing social media landscape.