In this day and age, having a solid social media strategy is essential for any business, big or small, to succeed. Consumers anywhere from age 12 to 65 use social media to communicate with friends, family, and brands. If your business is not using social media, you may be missing out on connecting with a larger audience. The best way to succeed with social media is to begin with a strategy and answer these following questions.
Where do you want to go?
Think about what the end goal is you would like to achieve from your social media strategy. While implementing your strategy, it is important to always remember the purpose of using social media in the first place. Is it to increase sales? Or bring more traffic to your website? Whatever the intended goals may be, keep it to a minimum so you can stay focused on only one or two goals that have a higher chance of being achieved.
Are your objectives clear?
Objectives that are too broad or easily misinterpreted will not help you succeed in your social media strategy. Your objectives should be specific enough so there is no room for misinterpretation but also achievable so they can actually be completed. Without these two characteristics, your objectives may be unattainable. It may also be helpful to put a timestamp on when you should achieve your objectives to instill more motivation and determination to see them through.
Do you know your customers?
A great social media strategist knows his or her audience and how to send messages that cater to the needs of its consumers. It’s extremely important to understand your audience because each consumer is looking for something different on social media. If you don’t target the right people, those who receive your content will simply ignore it and your content won’t be engaged with. To truly get to understand your audience, start by creating buyer personas of your ideal customer. From here, you can begin to define the characteristics of your audience.
What are other companies doing?
Other companies are the best guide to see what works and what doesn’t on social media. They’ve already done all the research for you and now all you have to do is analyze it. Look into their posts and content to determine what has been successful with the audience you’re trying to reach. Take note of successful campaigns to spark creativity for your own content in the future.
Where will I reach my audience?
There are so many social media outlets available and not all of them are the same. The way you market to your audience on Snapchat is very different from Instagram and the same goes for all social media platforms. Of course, you must go where your audience goes. Conduct research on the social media outlets available and experiment with different campaigns to see which are most successful. Once you have determined the few social media outlets you find to be most useful, stick to those and don’t sway from what you know.
If you can answer all of these questions, then you are well on your way to implementing a social media strategy. Make sure that the content you create aligns with your overall business strategy and intended goals. What other questions do you need to answer before starting a social media strategy?