Social media marketing is one of the popular marketing strategies nowadays. From small scale businesses to large businesses, everyone is using social media as a strong marketing tool. No doubt, social media holds the largest audience. Almost everyone uses social media platforms daily. It has enrooted in our lives so much that we cannot think of spending a single day without it. Social media is a hub of people and the best platform to create awareness among the people about your brand. It is a platform that helps you to connect with your audience and boost your business profile. Not only this, marketing your business through social media helps in increasing your sales and drives traffic to your business website.
Nowadays, businesses are using social media platforms greatly to avail such great advantages. If you have a business and want to market your products and services then you should use social media for marketing purposes. Social media platforms are user-friendly but it requires some techniques and strategies to achieve business objectives. It is important to create a proper social media strategy for the promotion of your business. As it is your complete plan which is executed to achieve the business goal through social media. It helps you in giving the right direction to achieve success. It is better to create a specific plan so that you can achieve your business target correctly.
If you need guidance in creating social media strategy then you have landed at the right place. This article will tell you how to create a social media strategy in simple and easy steps. Just go through the entire post and learn to create a social media strategy.
Easy Steps to Create a Social Media Strategy
Need assistance in promoting your business? If yes, then walk with us through the ten-step plan to develop a strong social media strategy for your business.
Step 1: Set Your Social Media Goals According to Your Business
The very first step to create a social media strategy plan is to set your goals and objectives. Goals are important because without setting targets you cannot achieve success. It tells you which path you should follow and directs to get you success. If you do not set your goals, you cannot weigh your success. Therefore, it is better to set your targets to achieve your business objectives. When you set your goals, it should be following your business motives and goals. You should set S.MA.R.T goals which include the basic elements. Your set of goals should be;
- Specific and precise that matches your business purpose and motive.
- They should be measurable. It means that you should be able to achieve those tasks and can measure the success rate.
- The goals should be achievable. It should be realistic so that you can achieve it.
- Always set relevant goals and objectives. You should set your goals according to you and your team skills.
- You should always set your goals by defining a specific time. Setting goals by defining a period for each target will make you responsible to complete your task in the defined time.
This is the real framework when setting your goals. The SMART goals structure will help you in walking on the right to get business success. Thus, write at least three objectives for social media according to your business objectives. It will help you in valuing your work. The sample picture is attached below;
Figure.1. Social Media Goals
Step 2: Know Your Audience
The very next step in the list to create a social media strategy plan is to know your audience. If you want to attract your audience, then you should know them. The better you know your customers, the better will be your strategy. For example, if you have a washing powder business, then selling it to men or children won’t be effective. If you target your audience specifically to mothers and housewives, you would get more lead.
Therefore, it is very important to identify the correct audience for your business. You should also know about your audience’s demands and choices. The following things you should know about your audience;
- Age
- Interests
- Designation
- Demands
- Education
- Industry etc.
These are the main things which you should know about your audience. You can gather data about your audience by distributing surveys and questionnaires. You can also use social media analytics to gather data. You can use those statistics to know about your target market and can create your social media strategy plan.
Step 3: Evaluate Your Resources
When you plan something, you should be well aware of your resources. It is important for creating a realistic plan. Staff, volunteers, money, skills, and abilities all are required to execute your plan. Thus, always view your business resources before formulating your plan. It is one of the mistakes which most marketers do. They set their goals and target so high which does not match their resources.
As a result, the plan gets failed. If you want to create a winning social media strategy plan, you need to strengthen your resources. You can use only one or two social media platforms at the start if your resources are limited. Once you increase your resources, you can extend your plan by increasing your goals and targets. In short, analyzing your resources will help you in creating a solid plan according to your assets.
Step 4: Know Your Competitors
The fourth and most important step is to know your competitors. Whenever you create any marketing strategy plan it is better to know what your competitors are doing. It will help you in analyzing that either you are creating in the right direction or not. If you want to know your competitors’ strategy, then you can take a competitive analysis. Taking competitive analysis will help you to identify your competitors and their position in the market. Here, raise the question that how can you analyze your competitors? The answer is simple. Social media analytics will help you to keep your eyes on your competitors. You can use various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.
You can do your homework by doing some research can search down the name of the companies that have a similar business like yours. You can even see the activities of your competitors on these social media platforms to get aware of your competitors’ tactics. Doing this will help you in creating your social media strategy effectively which can compete with your competitors.
Step 5: Create Accounts and Set up Your Business Profile
Once you are done with the above-mentioned steps, it is time to select which social media platform you will use. Some businesses use all platforms whereas some use few social media channels to market their products and services. You can choose any social media platform which you think you or your team can handle and matches your business objectives. Facebook is observed to be the most popular social media channel. According to the Mind Gap report of 2019, approximately 2.5 billion active users use Facebook daily. The statistics show that Facebook is one of the largest human hubs where millions of people are on the same platform. The second social media channel which is been used by the majority is Instagram. Not only small scale but even large-sized businesses use Instagram to promote their products and services among the customers. Therefore, select which social media channels you would like to use to create brand awareness.
To select which platform suits you the most you should create your mission statement. The mission statement involves your business objective and your social media targets. Creating a mission statement will help you in focusing on your specific goals. We have quoted two examples of mission statements for you taken from a well-known organization.
Example # 1: “We will use Twitter for customer support to keep email and call volumes down.”
Example # 2: “We will use LinkedIn for promoting and sharing our company culture to help with recruitment and employee advocacy.”
Once you select a suitable social media channel for you, then begin creating your business profiles. The social media channels are very user-friendly. You need to learn a few techniques to manage your social media accounts properly. To do this, first of all, you need to create your social media accounts. Simply, follow the instructions and create your profile with your business name.
Make sure that all the fields are properly filled. Write down an interesting business bio that includes your motives, objectives, and other relevant information. Remember to use business keywords to get greater leads. You can also add brand images and logos to make your business profile attractive and stand out among your competitors. If you think you can make a business profile on all the social media channels by following the step by step guide.
- Create your Facebook page
- Create an Instagram business page
- Create an account on Snapchat
- Create your business page on LinkedIn
- Use Pinterest for branding your business
- Create your Youtube channel
You can follow this list or can alter it according to your resources. Thus, create an attractive profile on social media to regulate your strategy and for the execution of the plan.
Step 6. Take Inspiration from Other Businesses
Many business organizations are doing great and are highly successful. You can draw inspiration from those business organizations and can view their marketing strategies. Learning from the successful business model will help you in improving techniques, and you can create a better social media strategy plan. You can even do some research work and can check out the list of “Award-winning companies” or “Shorty Awards” present at the top of the social media channels.
You can see how successful brands attract customers. You can apply a similar concept on your business profile too. Have you ever thought about why you get attracted to the National Geographic page? The answer is simple because of their cover stories and documentaries which attract us towards their page. Similarly, Shopify the famous E-commerce platform who attracts it’s by showcasing their products using different case stories. Thus, find inspiration from successful business models and opt for their strategies with modifications to enhance your brand profile.
You can also get inspiration from your consumers. Yes, customers are a source of inspiration. You can see what your online customers are talking about your products and services. What they are expecting from your business or what their demands are.
Knowing about your consumer choices will help you in getting inspiration and you can plan your strategies according to it.
Step 7: Make your Social Media Content Calendar
Publishing great content from your social account is important, but along with it, a proper plan to publish the content is more important. You cannot share the content randomly because it will leave no impact behind. To ease your work and to create a solid impact on your social media post on your audience, you can create your social media content calendar. The social media content calendar allows you to list your posts along with the time and publishing date along with the name of the social media channel. It is the perfect platform to manage all your social media activities easily and organized.
However, you need to make sure that your social media calendar portrays the mission statement which you have created for each account. Doing this will help your business to increase its worth and will create a strong profile in front of the customers. You can structure it like;
- 50% will drive traffic to your website.
- 20% of the content will help in increasing lead generation goals.
- 5% of the content will represent your company.
- 80% of the posts will help in informing, entertaining, and educating.
- 20% of the content will help in promoting the brand.
Once you prepare your schedule, you can use an online scheduler tool such as a Hootsuite tool. Using this, you can schedule your entire plan and can update any activity at any time you want. Install Hootsuite tool and schedule your activity plan.
Step 8: Craft your Content
If you want to engage your audience and want to attract towards your business page, then we recommend you to craft attractive content. Content is one of the basic elements that help in attracting a large audience. Remember the tone of your content should be light and attractive instead of just informing tone.
Whether it is a Facebook post or any article, the tone should be informal. When your audience reads your post, they should feel like you are talking to them directly. Thus create engaging content for the readers to drive heavy traffic. You can write creative blogs and article with catchy headlines which catches the attention of the audience.
Step 9: Respond to Your Audience
Another important tip that you should add when creating your social media strategy plan is to respond to your customers timely. Customers are the key element of success for any business. They can make your business popular and defame it as well. To make your customers loyal, then you should impress them with your services. You should always respond to your customers timely. For example, if anyone drops any message privately, try to respond to the customer’s concern timely.
Similarly, if anyone leaves a comment on any post try to respond to that comment with great respect. You don’t need to always receive positive criticism. Some customers might not like your services and post a bad review about it. You should try to respond to all the positive and negative criticism respectfully. For negative criticism, you can take it positively and make a promise to your customers that you will improve your services for them.
Responding to all the concerns of the customers will create a positive impact on the business. It will help in developing a strong position among the customer and will show that you are responsible for your acts. Thus, try to answer all the queries of the customers to give a positive impression.
Step 10: Review and Revise
Last but not the least, reviewing and revising is the main, and important tip. The social media strategy plan is a very important document of your business. It needs to be right to accomplish the set targets and goals. Before implementing your plan, you should always review it whether it is perfect or not or requires any changes. You can even review your strategic plan by any professional expert. Once you implement the plan, you will start getting the leads. Review the data and match it with your set targets. If you think you are lacking in your targets, then you should review your plan and revise it accordingly. It will help you in improving your plan and will drive more traffic to your website.
These are the ten most effective and easy tips that will help you in creating a winning social media strategy plan. So what are you waiting for? Start creating your own social media plan and boost your business leads.
About the Author
Jeanne Page is an online academic expert and a professional blogger. She has done her bachelor’s in mass communication and owns a successful private business. Her main motive is to help people by imparting knowledge and sharing her experience. She also helps students with their academic problems by guiding them and offers “Do my online classes” services at affordable rates.
