How to Build a Social Media Strategy This Weekend

Social media: it’s rapidly become one of the most essential marketing tools for professionals around the world. Do you have a social media strategy?

With about 80% of the U.S. population using social media, it’s clear that platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest can be a major boon for your company. The question, then, is how you go about using them as effectively as possible.

The answer is simple: you develop a social media strategy.

If you’re new to this concept or your current social media strategy needs some work, here’s a straightforward breakdown about how you can create an award-winning social strategy this weekend.

Your Step-by-Step Guide to Create a Social Media Strategy

Take your social media interaction to the next level with these social media strategy creation steps:

1. Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Before you can gain any traction with your social media strategy, you need to set some actionable objectives and goals. Without the help of goals, there’s no way to set your sights on certain outcomes or measure the success (or lack thereof) of your efforts.

Keep in mind, though, that it’s not enough to just set goals. Instead, you’ve got to set SMART goals. SMART goals are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-Bound

SMART goals are unique in that they’re well-formed enough to lead to true business outcomes. They serve as the framework you need to take your company’s social media strategy and interaction to the next level.

Related Article: What is Social Media Marketing? Your Step-by-Step Guide

2. Track Your Metrics

When it comes to social media, there are two different categories of metrics: vanity metrics and meaningful metrics. Vanity metrics are the ones that stroke your company’s ego: likes, tweets, retweets, etc.

Meaningful metrics, on the other hand, are the metrics that support your company’s SMART social goals. Depending on what you’re focused on achieving, meaningful metrics can include customer acquisition, engagement, and more.

If you want to know how well your SMART goals are working, it’s essential to track these metrics throughout the lifespan of your social campaigns. When you pay close attention to these metrics, you’ll know where your social media strategy is succeeding, and where you may need to improve. it.

While you can’t “Track your metrics” conclusively in a single weekend, you can decide which metrics you’ll focus on, and put a plan in place for tracking them.

3. Build an Audience Persona

Who are you trying to reach on social media? If you don’t know the answer to this question, it’s time to figure it out – STAT. The reason for this is simple: understanding who your audience is and what they want is essential if you want to create content your customers like. After all, how can you expect to communicate effectively with customers if you don’t even know who they are?

Fortunately, there’s a simple way around this: creating an audience persona. These personas are semi-fictional characters that lay out the demographics, wants, needs, and concerns of your most valuable customers. They make it possible to think more clearly about your customers and ensure you’re avoiding assumptions.

If you’ve never created an audience persona before, the linked guide from Buffer can walk you through the process in just a few minutes.

4. Back Yourself up With Facts

If you’ve got some assumptions kicking around about social media, it’s a great idea to collect some real-world facts to ensure you’re not operating on faulty information.

For example, is Facebook really the best platform to reach the customers you think you’re reaching? Where do your customers come from? What languages do they speak? And how do they like interacting with brands on social?

Related Article: Top 6 Social Media Myths to Avoid

5. Analyze Your Competition

Do you know who your competition is? If so, do you know what they do well and what they could afford to do a bit better? If the answer to either of these questions is “no,” now is the time to conduct a competitive analysis. Don’t worry – this process is quite a bit simpler than it may sound.

A competitive analysis allows you to take a closer look at your competition and use their social media presences to spot opportunities of your own. For example, maybe one of your competitors has a great Instagram presence but has neglected Facebook entirely If so, this may be your chance to blow them out of the water on that platform.

Here’s a template to help you conduct your competitive analysis.

6. Audit Your Social Presence

Close out your weekend of social media strategy planning by taking an honest look at your current social media presence, and making a plan about what’s working and what’s not. To this end, ask yourself these questions:

• Who is connecting with your brand on social media?
• Which social media sites do you currently use and which create the most interaction?
• How does your brand stack up against your competition on social media?

Related Article:  10 Apps To Boost Your Social Media Presence

Better Social Interaction Starts Here

Social media is everything for modern businesses, and you can’t afford to take a shot in the dark. Instead, you’ve got to develop a social media strategy that allows you to take an active and intentional approach. With these six steps, you can develop a social media strategy in a weekend, and keep adjusting it as your brand grows, changes, and improves.

Related Article: What is Marketing Automation? A Step by Step Guide

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