{"id":8031,"date":"2024-03-10T10:00:24","date_gmt":"2024-03-10T10:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedigitalcauldron.com\/?p=8031"},"modified":"2024-03-10T10:00:24","modified_gmt":"2024-03-10T10:00:24","slug":"social-media-strategy-in-8-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tdc.thedigitalcauldron.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/10\/social-media-strategy-in-8-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Media Strategy In 8 Steps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Does your business have a documented <\/span>Social Media<\/span><\/a> Strategy? Well if you answered no, then you are not the only one. You can use this step-by-step guide to create a purposeful social media marketing strategy and download the template too!<\/span><\/p>\n

Fact of the matter is that without a strategy, you are gambling and are bound to lose. Being purposeful and strategic usually wins the social media game. And to help you win, here\u2019s a step-by-step guide to creating an effective social media strategy.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Write An Executive Summary<\/b><\/h2>\n

This should be a one-pager, concise, and clearly identifying your social media purpose and how it ties into your current business goals and objectives.<\/span><\/p>\n

Establish the primary goal and specific objectives you are trying to achieve. Be sure to identify a channel focus and avoid trying to be all things to all social media platform.<\/span><\/p>\n

Benchmark and include measurable outcomes to assure all players are defining success with the same expectations. Larger goals need granular objectives. Keep your goals SMART.<\/span><\/p>\n

Example: Grow your Instagram audience by 30 percent by Q3 of 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Do A Social Media Audit<\/b><\/h2>\n

Start by conducting a social media audit of your brand\u2019s social channels compared to two or three competitors. You can even pick a non-competing brand to use for inspiration and aspiration.<\/span><\/p>\n

Compare types of content, engagement, frequency, audience size, visuals, video use, tone, and customer service messaging. How\u2019s the response rate?<\/span><\/p>\n

Other factors to compare and note include:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Emoji use<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Facebook Messenger, chatbots and artificial intelligence<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Keywords and hashtags<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Third-party content<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Online branded search results<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Reviews<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Engagement is the number one way to measure ROI of social media advertising for both large and small businesses.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Another thing to note is what exactly is engagement getting you? Log into Google Analytics and check out your social media acquisition reports. How\u2019s the session quality and page views? And where are the customers coming from and what kind of content are they consuming the most.<\/span><\/p>\n

    3. Lock Social Media Objectives<\/b><\/h2>\n

    By this point in time, you should know what your social media objectives will be. write them down in a clear, concise and simple terms and drill down into them.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Let\u2019s do a quick review of the difference between goals, strategy, objectives, and tasks \u2013 also known as G\u2019SOT.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Goals: <\/b>These are your broad social media outcomes.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Strategy:<\/b> The approach you will take to accomplish your goal.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Objectives: <\/b>These are measurable steps you will take to achieve the strategy.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Tactics: <\/b>These are the tools or tasks used in pursuing an objective related to a strategy.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Examples:<\/span><\/p>\n

    Goal: <\/b>Make our book the #1 best-seller in the food category.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Strategy:<\/b> Increase the amount of content we publish on social channels supporting the book\u2019s topics, ideas, and opinions.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Objective: <\/b>Increase unique visitors from social channels to the book\u2019s website by 50 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Tactic:<\/b> Through the use of food bloggers and food influencers, leverage the exposure with branded hashtags and behind the scenes content using Instagram Stories, Facebook Live, and Twitter.<\/span><\/p>\n

    4. Formulate Buyer Personas<\/b><\/h2>\n

    The bottom line is that brands need personas.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Marketers preach the value of personas, but when it comes down to investing the time and effort into building and using personas? Zilch!<\/span><\/p>\n

    The good news: the lack of buyer personas makes for a huge opportunity if your competition is missing the persona step.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Buyer personas coupled with social media is a sure shot winning formula. The results mean big wins in increased:<\/span><\/p>\n