Social Media Marketing Strategy

Step 1: Set social media marketing goals that align to business objectives

The more specific your strategy is, the more effective the execution will be. Set SMART goals and track the right metrics to set yourself up for success.

Set SMART goals

The first step to creating a social media marketing strategy is to establish your objectives and goals. Without goals, you have no way to measure your success or your social media return on investment (ROI).

Each of your goals should be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

An example of a SMART goal for your business might be “Grow our Instagram audience by 50 new followers per week.”

With SMART goals, you’ll make sure your goals actually lead to real business results, rather than just lofty ideals.

Track meaningful metrics

While vanity metrics like retweets and likes can be fun to share and easy to track, it’s hard to prove their real value for your business. Instead, focus on targets such as leads generated, web referrals, and conversion rate.

You may want to track different goals for different channels, or even different uses of each channel. For example, you can use paid campaigns to increase brand awareness, but measure acquisition and engagement for organic social posts.

Make sure to align your social media goals with your overall marketing strategy. This will make it easier for you to show the value of your work and get executive buy-in and investment.

Start developing your social media marketing plan by writing down at least three social media goals.

Step 2: Learn everything you can about your audience

if you’re not engaged in social media listening, you’re creating your business strategy with blinders on—and you’re missing out on mountains of actionable insights from real people who are actively talking about you or your industry online.

Here’s how to start listening and building your understanding of your audience and their needs.

Create audience personas

Knowing who your audience is and what they want to see on social is key to creating content that they will like, comment on, and share. This knowledge also critical for planning how to develop your social media fans into customers for your business.

Try creating audience personas. For example, a retail brand might create different personas based on demographics, buying motivations, common buying objections, and the emotional needs of each type of customer.

Personas sharpen your marketing tactics. Luxury buyers, for example, might not respond to Facebook ads with sales. But they might respond to Facebook ads with exclusive in-store events to be the first to see a new line of clothing. With personas, you’ll have the customer insights you need to create campaigns that speak to the real desires and motivations of your buyers.

Gather real-world data

Don’t make assumptions. Social media analytics can also provide a ton of valuable information about who your followers are, where they live, which languages they speak, and how they interact with your brand on social. These insights allow you to refine your strategy and better target your social ads.

Jugnoo, an Uber-like service for auto-rickshaws in India, used Facebook Analytics to learn that 90 percent of their users who referred other customers were between 18 and 34 years old, and that 65 percent of that group was using Android. They used this information to target their ads, resulting in a 40 percent lower cost per referral.

Step 3: Research the competition

Odds are, your competitors are already using social media—and that means you can learn from what they’re already doing.

Conduct a competitive analysis

A competitive analysis allows you to understand who the competition is and what they’re doing well (and not so well). You’ll get a good sense of what’s expected in your industry, which will help you set some social media targets of your own.

This analysis will also help you spot opportunities. For example, maybe one of your competitors dominates on Facebook, but has put little effort into Twitter or Instagram. You might want to focus on the networks where your audience is underserved, rather than trying to win fans away from a dominant player.

Engage in social listening

Social listening is another way to keep track of the competition.

As you track your competitors’ accounts and relevant industry keywords, you may notice strategic shifts in the way competitors use their social accounts. Or you might spot a specific post or campaign that really hits the mark—or one that bombs.

Keep an eye on this information and use to it evaluate your own goals and plans.

Step 4: Conduct a social media audit

Conducting a social media audit helps you assess how well your current social media use works for you.

Evaluate your current efforts

If you’re already using social media tools, you need to take a step back and look at what you’ve already accomplished. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What’s working?
• What’s not working?
• Who’s connecting with you on social?
• Which social media sites does your target market use?
• How does your social media presence compare to that of your competitors?

Once you gather all this information in one place, you’ll have a good starting point for planning how to improve your results.

Your audit should give you a clear picture of what purpose each of your social accounts serves. If the purpose of an account isn’t clear, think about whether it’s worth keeping. It may be a valuable account that just needs a strategic redirection, or it may be an outdated account that’s no longer worth your while.

To help you decide, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is my audience here?
2. If so, how are they using this platform?
3. Can I use this account to help achieve meaningful business goals?

Asking these tough questions now will help keep your social media strategy on track as you grow your social presence.

Look for impostor accounts

During your audit process, you may discover fraudulent accounts using your business name or the names of your products—that is, accounts that you and your business don’t own.

These imposter accounts can be harmful to your brand (never mind capturing followers that should be yours), so be sure to report them. You may want to get your social accounts verified to ensure your fans and followers know they are dealing with the real you.