5 Steps to Build a Winning Social Media Strategy

What is a Social Media Strategy? 

It is the communication plan of your business to achieve your objectives. These are the highest social media marketing objectives that will assist your company to achieve new levels. You must take these into account and target the correct social media platform in order to reach the target demographic for an efficient social media strategy. It also enables you to learn about the content and wants of your audience. This method assists in establishing a good brand reputation by tackling consumer concerns and achieving company goals. 

Why is a Social Media Marketing Strategy so important? 

One negative comment on social media can ruin the reputation of your business – which provides big opportunities for your competitors. In turn, you need to be ready (and quick) to reply to comments on social media. 

In order to avoid such a circumstance, a social media strategy keeps the business up to the task and leaves no excuses for any negative comments. 

A good social media strategy can sometimes save a business. When Nestle Maggi was banned in 2015, the company turned to social media. The brand responded to all of the unfavourable comments and questions from customers, and maintained a firm front by stating that Maggi has no additional MSG. Nestle Maggi has once again won the hearts of people by addressing and communicating with them on social media. 

Steps to create a social media strategy

1. Know your purpose

Before creating a campaign or developing a social media strategy, consider what you want your business to gain from it. 

• Is it brand awareness?
• Is it to push sales?
• Is it to generate new leads?
• Is it to gain more followers?
• Is it to generate traffic to your website?

Assuming you wish to expand your website’s reach through social media – what are your plans? The solution is to direct users or clients to your website via your social media networks. One thing you can do to accomplish this is to run a competition that directs participants to your website, or by posting a discount/offer that can only be redeemed on your website. 

This method enhances the contact with its followers on social media while also driving sales to its website. A well-executed social media plan with a clear campaign goal can work wonders for a business.

2. Know your target audience

If your business sells high-end luxury vehicles and markets to the middle class demographic on Facebook, your strategy may fail. The car’s ideal target market would be wealthy people as they have the money and the desire to buy luxury vehicles.

Use the value, attitudes, and lifestyle model to determine what type of audience is best suited to your product category. It assists you in knowing the primary motivation of consumers behind purchasing things. Along with analyzing consumer behaviour, it also helps to understand consumer demographics such as age, income, gender, social position etc.

If you understand the behaviour of your target audience, you may beat the competition. You can learn the following through researching your target audience:

• Which customers are you missing?
• Which social media platforms do they use?
• Can they become your target audience?

Ensure you create a social media strategy to redirect your competitors’ audience to your business.

3. Know your social media audience

When determining your target audience, you must also determine which social media platforms they use and why. 

Furthermore, not all content is appropriate for all platforms. Suppose you sell a product that requires a lot of instructions, you can’t promote it on Twitter because of the character limit. Email marketing or Facebook should be used instead.

Short and transient content, which is not required in the long run, can be posted using Instagram’s 24-hour story function. Also, because people’s attention spans on Instagram are extremely short, content must be quick and unusual in order to be memorable. 

Other than this, you should also:

• Determine which platform provides the most number of conversion rates or clicks
• Analyze your competitors and check which platform they are using
• Use the right social media platform to make your content memorable

4. Relevant content

If you publish outdated content your audience will be utterly unaware of your brand or will be disinterested. You must stay current with trends and incorporate them into your material. 

5. Execution & Evaluation

Keep an eye on your social media plan at all times when it is being implemented.

• Keep an eye out for loopholes
• See whether any changes should be made in the middle on an ongoing campaign
• Ensure you are aware of which platform gets the most attention
• What content does your audience like?
• Is there any negative feedback?
• Create and curate engaging content