One of the most effective tools to use for any marketing strategy is social media. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others have the ability to connect your brand to potentially millions of people. Without a strong social media strategy behind your business, your company may remain overlooked and out of the spotlight compared to more active competitors.

Today, over 53% of the world’s population uses social media, making it critical to reach any audience, but the key is to approach your strategy the right way. Going into 2022, there are several key ways to build your social media marketing strategy. The following are some ideas to get you started on your next campaign.

 

Set Clear and Achievable Goals

 

The very first step to take is to create a list of goals that are specific to your business. Think about exactly what you want to achieve with your social media strategy, which will give it a clear direction.

 

 

For example, your goal might be to raise awareness for your brand and expose it to new audience segments. Other campaigns might be geared toward driving traffic to your website or increasing sales. Social media is also a great way to increase customer loyalty and keep your company front and center among existing customers.

At the same time, your goals should be realistic and attainable. You can start small with certain milestones to begin with and scale over time as your business and social media presence grow. You’ll also benefit from only having one or two goals going into your campaigns, which will help avoid potential complications later.

 

Determine How to Measure Your Success

 

Once you’ve set goals for your strategy, you need to figure out how to track its success and effectively measure your ROI. To measure your campaigns’ success, you need to determine which key performance indicators (KPIs) and corresponding metrics to track according to your goals.

 

 

There are many potential KPIs you can track to help determine whether your strategy is working, including:

• Organic and paid reach
• Engagement rates
• The number of people reached
• Shares and likes
• Quality of engagement
• Video views
• Clicks
• Visits to your profile
• Mentions of your brand
• Leads
• The size of your audience
• Conversion rate
• Website traffic from social media

After selecting your KPIs, you can figure out how to measure them. You might use certain internal tools to help keep track of your strategy’s performance, but many platforms like Facebook also have their own tools to help you measure results.

 

Research Your Audience

 

Keep in mind that your strategies won’t get anywhere if you don’t take the time to research your audience. Like your SEO and other marketing efforts, your social media strategy should have a specific audience or multiple segments to target.

To start with, think about the nature of your business and the people you’re trying to attract. From there, you can determine which platforms they’re most likely to use. While you may be tempted to build a strategy on as many platforms as possible to maximize your reach, this is highly inefficient and can wind up holding you back. Instead, only focus on the platforms your audience actively uses.

 

 

 

Different social media platforms appeal to different demographics. For instance, Facebook appeals to a wide range of audiences who use this platform to connect with family and friends in addition to connecting with brands. Twitter is another popular platform for many B2C brands. Meanwhile, LinkedIn is ideal for networking and connecting with professionals, which is critical for many B2B verticals.

Certain platforms also connect with specific age groups. As an example, Instagram and YouTube are two of the most popular social media channels among Generation Z and Millennials. TikTok is another popular platform among younger audiences. Many older users, on the other hand, spend more time on Facebook.

Additionally, think about what types of visuals and messaging resonate with your audience. You can see what your competitors are doing on social media and determine which strategies of theirs attract the most engagement. Based on what your audience likes, you can craft social media ads and posts that are most likely to establish a strong connection.

 

Create Guidelines for Your Content

 

Today, people are overwhelmed with ads and other content on social media, which is why you need to develop content that stands out. Otherwise, you’ll wind up lost in the mix as people passively see your content and quickly forget about it.

The best social media content gets people to stop browsing and start researching a brand. You can create this type of content by establishing clear guidelines for content creation.

 

 

As you go about developing a content guide, determine precisely how you’ll communicate with your audience. For example, some content might help inform and educate audiences, while other content could entertain. Depending on your brand and audience preferences, you might also want to determine whether you should inject humor into your content to increase engagement. Also, consider how you’ll address customer complaints or requests on various platforms.

If you can create an effective style guide for your content, everyone on your team will be on the same page as they create consistently great content.

 

Organize All Necessary Resources

 

You can have the best strategy ready to go, but you also need the right tools to help you launch it.

 

 

There are many resources available to enable you to successfully launch and manage your campaigns. Some tools could include collaboration software that facilitates communication among your team, analytics software that allows you to measure campaigns, and content scheduling software that allows for consistent posting. Some tools also keep track of brand mentions to help you find out what people are saying about you, which can further inform your efforts.

In addition, assign specific roles for people on your team. One person could be responsible for written posts, for instance, while another is behind the graphic design for visual posts.

 

Build a Social Media Strategy That Fuels Your Brand’s Success

 

Keeping these tips in mind, you’ll be able to develop a social media strategy that truly works. Through proper goal-setting, tracking, research, and organization, you’ll have the chance to establish a strong presence that helps your brand grow. To help your campaigns succeed, you may want some outside assistance, seeing as social media campaigns require a lot of attention. Having a partner by your side can help you develop and maintain winning strategies, enabling you to focus more on growing your business.

 

 

If you would like some help with your social media and other marketing efforts, contact the experts at Vigor Seorchers to get started today.