Here we’ll show you the steps to craft your master plan for creating, posting and engaging your followers with social media content.
Having a clear social media strategy before you start promoting will benefit you in 3 ways:
- It will help you stay consistent and relevant to your audience.
- It will help you set and track your goal(s) and objective(s).
- It will help you optimize and adapt your approach proactively.
Needless to say, most content creators who succeed in making money on social media have established their social media strategy beforehand, tested and refined it along the way, and kept their audience engaged with original, creative content.
Of course, doing so requires some planning and understanding your audience, but it’s a smart time investment that will show returns sooner than later.
Here are our winning steps to guide you in crafting your social media strategy:
1. Define your objective and goal(s)
An objective is a vision of what you want to achieve.
Goals are your milestones to fulfill that vision.
These are the roots on which you’ll base your whole social media strategy and content.
As a content creator planning to promote a brand on social media, your objective should be around generating leads or sales, aka conversions.
From there, set one or several SMART goals:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-bound
For example, if your social media content has an average reach of 50,000 accounts and an average engagement rate of 1%, you could set the following goal:
Generating 500 conversions within a week of posting and engaging with my audience.
There’s a saying in marketing that repetition is key.
That can explain why you won’t necessarily generate 500 leads or sales on your first post, even if you generate as much engagement as on your other posts.
In order to be attainable, your goal should consider the emotional buildup you’ll generate through your content to connect with your fans.
To help you measure that goal over time, you’ll need to keep an eye on key performance metrics, such as reach, impressions, engagement rate, clicks (CTR), and conversions.
Once your goal is set, sharpen your understanding of your fans to find the best ways to connect with them (and make them convert!)
2. Know your social media audience
We said previously that the better you understand your followers, the better are your chances to succeed in turning them into customers.
Asking yourself the right questions and gathering as much knowledge as possible about your audience will enable you to optimize your social media strategy and better target your followers. Knowledge is power!
Some of the valuable information you can get from studying your audience may include:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Interests
- Education level
- Average income
- Consumption habits
- Etc.
Are there other content creators or competing brands with a similar audience? Surely.
How do they interact with their audience?
Inspire yourself from actual competitors to find gaps and opportunities for your social media presence.
3. Align your content
Now is the time to develop your content and make sure it aligns with your social media audience, objective and goal(s).
Define what type(s) of content you will create and post on social media: images, videos, text, or a combination of all three.
What tones seem the most natural and authentic for you to use: humorous, serious, motivating, assertive, conversational, etc.?
Tip: A unique voice encompasses a combination of multiple tones.
Your content should resonate with your audience and bring some kind of value (entertainment, emotion, information) rather than being a cold, unnatural sales pitch.
A helpful exercise consists of finding the sweet spot between what the brand wants to communicate and what your social media audience wants to hear.
Once you’ve found that golden area, build your content and messages within it.
Remember that social media is a two-way conversation. Make sure you interact with your fans by asking questions, hosting polls, and responding promptly to comments.
4. Establish a schedule
Repetition and consistency are keys to generating and maintaining engagement on social media.
For this eason, setting a posting schedule will help you create the emotional buildup required to interest, convince and convert your audience.
Consider your chosen social media platform’s posting best practices, your audience’s prime time presence times and the resources you have available to define:
- How often you will post
- When you will post
- How you will organize your content and messaging (interest, convince, convert)
Feel free to adapt your schedule after a couple of posts based on your first results.
5. Measure your results
Track your performance metrics (reach, impressions, engagement rate, clicks, conversions) with the help of your chosen social media platform’s analytics.
You can also use paid tools like Hootsuite or Loomly to measure your success with advanced analytics features and compare your performance over time.
Keep in mind that establishing a social media strategy is an ongoing process, not a one-size-fits-all magic formula.
Regularly testing and refining your approach will maximize your chances of achieving your objective and goal(s).
