We've been refining our social media approach for the past six years. We always utilize a starting point for our social media consulting customers.

This is one of the main theses we use in our social media planning process:

Everyone is "doing" social media in 2021. It's a standard feature of most marketing strategies. However, not many businesses are also social.

With all of the new tools and platforms that are continually being released, it's easy to fall into the trap of viewing social media from a tactical rather than a strategic lens. The greatest social media strategy plans are tool agnostic, with goals and KPIs that transcend any social media platform. Let's look at the best technique to develop a successful social strategy.

Step 1: Create a Multi-Functional Team

Nobody in your company should "own" social media strategy. Social media has an influence on every aspect of the business and should be treated more like air (everywhere) than water (you have to go get it). As a result, the first stage in the process is to form a cross-functional team to assist in the development and implementation of the rest of the plan. Determine who will be engaged, such as sales, customer service, marketing, and content.

Step 2: Define Your Goals (What's the Big Deal?)

Yes, you can utilize social media to assist you achieve a variety of business goals. However, the strongest social media strategies are those that concentrate (at least initially) on a more specific reason for using social media. What are your primary goals for using social media? Awareness? Sales? What is the difference between loyalty and retention? Choose one.

Step 3: Pay Attention to Your Audience and Rivals

Although it's an old social media marketing cliche, "listen" is still sound advice that's often overlooked. If you widen your social listening outside your brand name, your consumers (and rivals) will provide you with an excellent reference to where and how you should be engaged in social media.

Analyzing how and where your audience organically engages in digital interactions may save you a lot of time and frustration. Find ways to communicate with consumers who are already talking about (or attempting to talk to) your brand rather of beginning from scratch.

Step 4: Define Your Target Market

Decide who you'll communicate with on social media now that you've listened to your audience. What are your present or potential consumers' demographic and psychographic characteristics? What does this mean in terms of what you may and should do on social media?

Constructing audience personas, which include their online behavior, values, and issues, will aid you in determining not just how to communicate with your audiences, but also where to do so. On certain channels, certain demographics and habits are more easily triggered than on others.

Step 5: Decide on your success metrics

How are you going to know whether this is genuinely making an impact in your company? What critical metrics will you use to assess the success of your social media strategy? How will you (hopefully) go beyond likes and engagement?

Selecting KPIs (key performance indicators) establishes corporate expectations for measuring the ROI of your social media initiatives.

A social media strategy is more like a workout regimen than a fast fix. Only through patience and effort will success be realized. In order to keep leadership buy-in for the long run, thoughtful KPIs and realistic verifiable quarterly targets are required.

Your knowledge is reflected in the success measures of your company. Advanced businesses, for example, follow clients all the way through the funnel, from social media participation to sale. Beginner businesses are more concerned with their reach, impressions, and other engagements.

Step 6: What is your one-of-a-kind talent?

It's no longer enough to be good: your brand and content must stand out.

What sets you apart from the competition? In a cluttered world, your brand must have a distinguishing feature that captivates and engages your target audience.

It makes no difference who you are or what you are selling. The qualities and advantages of your product aren't enough to pique people's interest. How will your organization appeal to the heart rather than the mind of your audience? It's not about the movies at Disney; it's about the magic. Apple is all about invention, not technology. What exactly are you up to?

Step 7: Make a Channel Strategy

Only once you've figured out why you're on social media in the first place and how you'll assess the success of your social media strategy can you focus on the "how" of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the rest. Your channel plan should include information about the audience you want to reach, your content strategy and editorial schedule, any resources you'll need, and how you'll assess the performance of each platform. This channel strategy should be different in that you should have a compelling purpose to participate in each.

Last but not least, you must choose how you will be human.

The mechanics of social media encourage businesses to compete for consumers' friends and family members' attention. As a result, your organization must behave like a person, not an entity, at least to some extent. What method will you use to do this?

When we work on social media strategy for big corporations, the plan and deliverables are far more detailed than what you see here, but they are all built on the same framework and thought process. I hope it will be beneficial to you in your own pursuits.

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Salty Red Dog Marketing, LLC is a marketing agency in Red Bank, NJ, Westport, CT, and everywhere in between. We service businesses with marketing strategies, digital marketing, social media, and consultations.

Contact: info@saltyreddogmarketing.com

Phone: NJ: (732) 802-6205 // CT: (203) 429-9671