Running a social media page for your business goes much deeper than witty copywriting and stunning imagery. Utilizing this avenue of marketing can actually be one of the greatest investments your company will ever make… if done effectively. It simply begins with creating a solid strategy.

You’d be surprised at how many businesses skimp on the planning and research it takes to develop a social media strategy. In the long run, this will hurt your business because you won’t be able to accurately measure how successful your efforts have been, making it difficult to understand your social media ROI. And trust us, when your boss suddenly begins to question whether investing in social media serves any value, you’ll want to have the data on hand.

So, where do we begin? Your strategy is determined by these 4 factors:

• Social Media Objectives
• Target Audience
• Content
• Platforms

Once you determine these 4 factors, you can then start setting specific goals per social media platform.

Objectives: What is your brand getting out of Social Media?

Your strategy starts with understanding why your business wanted to invest in social media in the first place. And SPOILER ALERT, the reason needs to be more defined than “because my competitors are doing it.”

Your objectives are the key efforts your brand intends to focus on with social media marketing. With each objective, there are a handful of KPIs (key performance indicators) or metrics you’ll want to track in order to understand how you’re performing. Consider these examples:

Brand Awareness

Getting new people to discover your brand. This objective helps you grow your audience.

KPIs to measure include:
Impressions
Reach
Followers
Shares
Story Views

Engagement

Encouraging users to interact with your brand. High engagement indicates the quality of your content AND your audience.

KPIs to measure include:
Engagement Rate
Likes, Comments, Retweets
Mentions
IG Story Retention

Customer Service

Addressing customer issues and concerns. This objective helps maintain customer retention and determines the overall experience that people get from your brand.

KPIs to measure include:
DMs
Response Rate
Response Time

Referrals & Conversion

Getting users to visit your website or make a purchase from your brand.

KPIs to measure include:
Sales Revenue
Lead Conversion Rate
Link Clicks (link in bio)
Clicks on Shoppable Posts

Your company may be in it for some or all of the reasons listed above. Whatever your brand chooses to focus on, it should help contribute to your overall business goals. For example, while keeping tabs on your engagement is great, if your overall business goal is to sell more products, you’ll want to focus your efforts on referrals and conversion. This is not to say you should completely ignore your engagement, as your engagement can give you insights about what content your audience responds to most.

Audience: Who Is Your Brand Trying To Reach?

Do you know who your ideal customer is? Getting to know your target audience is a huge part of developing a strong social media strategy. When creating social media content, you need to be keeping your audience in mind. What are their consumer habits? What content will they respond to the most? This is also crucial when running paid social media campaigns. You’ll need to have a defined target audience otherwise you might be spending your ad budget on social media users who aren’t interested in your brand.

Many brands like to develop a buyer persona as a part of their strategy. This is a profile that defines your ideal customer’s age, gender, economic status, interests and so on. It’s not uncommon for brands to have multiple buyer personas.

Content: What Will Your Brand Post About?

By now, we should all be aware that content is king. It is what fuels the engine of social media. When a user followers your social media account, there is an agreement being made. By following your business’s account, there is an exchange of value. The user has decided to become your followers to either keep up with your business, learn about your products, or simply be inspired by your content.

You’ll need to identify the value you intend to provide to your followers with your social media content. This is why it is important to understand who your audience is. Focusing your content on how you can help your audience reach their goals or overcome their challenges with your product/service is a great place to get started.

Social Media Platforms: Which Networks Should Your Brand Focus On?

Once you are clear on your business’s social media objectives and target audience, you can then determine what social media platforms will benefit your brand the most. It’s likely that your target audience favors one social media platform over another and this is where you should focus your efforts. You should also consider how to best achieve the social media objectives you defined early on each platform. Remember, it’s not just about having an account on social media, but it’s also managing that account well. If you aren’t managing it well, then you likely won’t reap the benefits and should consider spending that time and money elsewhere.

The fact is that without a strategy, it’s easy for your brand to get lost. Getting a social media strategy in place means taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture of your business’s goals. While it may seem redundant to answer these high-level questions about your brand, having this roadmap gets everyone on the same page on where your business is headed and why. Your team will want to refer to this strategy often and you should shift it as you learn more about what works and what doesn’t work for your brand on social media.