Steps to create an effective social media strategy

If you’re a business, social media is a vital tool to reach and engage with your target audiences. The issue, though, is that creating and managing a social media strategy can feel like a daunting undertaking. Where should we set up accounts? How often should we post? Do I need to respond to customers? Often, marketers get bogged down in the logistics of running social media accounts that they lose sight of the purpose of their social media strategy. In this post we’ll answer some of the basic, but critical questions to setting up, and managing, a comprehensive social media strategy. If at any point in these steps you question whether you’ll be able to manage these components, then you may not be equipped to manage an effective social media strategy.

Understand your objectives

Communication channels like email, online advertising, and a corporate website all play a role in a larger marketing strategy, social media is no different. Before determining what channels you’d like to participate in, you must start from the top with your company goals and work your way down into your social media goals. For example, if one of your business goals is to grow your prospect database by 30%, your social media goal could be to connect with 20 social media influencers within your target audience. Lanoue (2017) broke this concept down “Essentially, what this process is doing is taking the goals that are most important to your organization and aligning your social media goals to show that you’re helping to accomplish them.”

Once you’ve built out your goals, the next step is to find your target audiences.

Audience discovery

The next step to determining what channels should be included in your social media strategy is to analyze where your target audiences exist today. Say, for example, if you’re a retirement planning company you may think that creating a SnapChat account is ludicrous, but you’ll need to have data to back that up. Pew Research Center annually provides a breakdown of social media demographic usage that can be leveraged to find the most opportune social media channels. A few demographic tidbits that are beneficial to all corporate social media professional:

-       68% of all adults use Facebook, compared to 21% adults using LinkedIn.

-       61% of adults aged 50-64 use Facebook and no other major social media channel is used more by more than 25%.

-       More than double the amount of women use Pinterest compared to the amount of men.

Social media frequency by platform

Not only can this data help you determine which channels to engage on, this data may also inform how much time investment you’d like to put into a particular channel. If a a channel isn’t accessed as frequently, like LinkedIn, your tactics may not need to be as robust as other channels.

After finding the right channels, it is imperative to decide how best to leverage these channels through your content and engagement.

Engage with, and listen to, your audience

Some communication channels are one-way channels, like online advertising, mass emails, and television commercials. Social media, on the other hand, is a two-way channel, meaning that posting content to your followers isn’t enough to grow interest and engagement, you can also learn valuable insights from social listening.

You should think of your social media channels as a customer service channel, a feedback channel, and a community forum. You must be equipped to handle all three. Alex York (2017) noted in a Sprout Social blog post that 34% of surveyed consumers used social media as their top customer service avenue. More importantly, there is a disconnect between the amount of time that people expect to wait for a response on social media, and how long it usually takes brands to respond.

Social media should also be used to engage with audiences in other ways besides customer service. Creating conversations and moments with audiences over social media are ways that brands build fans and build brand equity. For example, recently Callaway Golf posted on Twitter that one of their PGA Tour professionals was going to use Taco Bell themed golf balls, and quote tweeted a follower’s witty response.

Finally, social media is good for gaining valuable voice of client through social listening. Social listening is the practice of skimming social media to analyze the conversations occurring about your brand or products. This tactic will help you understand your audience, your brand health amongst audiences, and how to optimize the relationship with your audiences.

There is a debate between conversation and content on social media, with some people feeling that “content is king” and that good content is a top priority. Sure, the content you post on each of your channels must be valuable and substantial, but it is just one component of the overall social media user experience and the valuable content is lost if you don’t balance it with strong audience engagement.

Leverage the right tools

If after reading through these steps it seems like implementing an effective social media strategy is impossible, do not fret. Luckily, there are a wide-array of social media management tools that allow you to easily oversee much of the management logistics of the strategy. If you’re looking for an application that can manage your posting schedules across multiple accounts Hootsuite might be your best bet. If you’re looking for a social listening tool that can integrate into your overall purchase funnel, HubSpot is a great choice. Sprout Social is a tool that can post and monitor social media conversations. When determining what tool is right for you, factor in the cost and technical expertise needed to adequately manage these applications and the data coming out of them.

So, are you ready to set up your social media strategy? This guide will help you with the critical components to setting up an effective strategy. Remember to apply your social media goals to your business goals, find the channels relevant to your audience, engage with your audience, and use the right tools to make the strategy manageable. The final piece of advice is to be flexible. The social media world is frequently evolving, with the rise of new capabilities and channels, and you must learn how to evolve with the world to remain relevant to your audiences.