Social media has changed the way businesses interact with consumers online.
From conversations to marketing tactics, companies must adjust how and when they engage.
The challenge for most is finding a consistent way to develop and share their message.
The key is a well thought out social media strategy that’s targeted and concise.
Ready to get started?
Below are 10 steps to a solid social media strategy. Learn how to begin to post with purpose, clarity and passion!
10 Steps to a Solid Social Media Strategy
1. Know Your Audience
Do you know who your potential clients are, what they do, and what motivates and inspires them?
Whether your target market is an individual or a business, it’s important to understand why they’re using social media and want to connect with you. Take the time to get inside their head.
First, define who your target market is, and then identify what problems you solve. What solutions can you provide that will ease their pain, make their life easier, or simplify the buying process?
Know Your Audience
- Be laser beam focused when describing your market
- Always remember that its easier to earn business through targeted marketing
- It’s great to get into the heads of your potential buyers, but even better to get into their hearts
- Put yourself in the shoes of your buyer and truly understand their needs
2. Create Targeted Content
Getting crystal clear about your target market makes content creation much easier.
Learn what’s important to your readers, and then share valuable information that speaks directly to their questions and concerns. Ask what they want to see more about, and how you can best serve them.
Taking a genuine interest in your readers goes a long way in building the know, like, and trust factor.
3. Expand Your Reach
Successful companies know that re-purposing content across multiple social channels is the secret sauce to expanding reach.
Don’t assume your customers only hang out on Facebook. Branch out and share your content on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter.
Enrich your brand through multi-channel campaigns.
4. Brand Your Business
When setting up accounts on different social media networks, ensure your logo, color scheme, fonts and graphics are consistent.
You want your personal brand to be easily identifiable, no matter where people connect with you.
5. Be Tactical
Have you created a social media strategy or is your strategy to simply show up and throw up on social media?
Take a strategic approach to posting. Create a content calendar that highlights topics, goals and social networks that will support your marketing strategy.
Not sure where to begin?
Take these steps to begin posting on purpose!
- Define your topics
- Break them down into weekly articles
- Choose your social outlets
6. Engage, Inform, Excite
Now that you’ve captured the attention of your audience, it’s time to make them feel special.
In social media (just as in life), it’s the little things that go a long way.
Take the time to respond to questions, give feedback, and show genuine interest in your audience.
7. Get Interactive
Not only do you need to show interest, but also show that you care more than your own content.
I follow the 70-30 rule. Not sure how that works?
Here’s the scoop:
Share a minimum of seventy percent engaging content and thirty percent promotional.
Find others sharing similar content to your own, and pass it along. It can be educational, entertaining, fun, or useful. Just make sure it’s relevant to your audience.
8. Research and Evaluate
Research should be the backbone of any social media strategy.
Google Analytics offers a rich database of statistics and analytics that can (and should) guide your posting and strategy decisions.
Leverage this information to learn as much as possible about which content has the biggest impact on your community. Evaluate how and why some content works, and some falls short.
9. Be Trendy
Maintaining a finger on the pulse of trending topics and stories relevant to your target market should always be at the top of your to-do list.
Keeping your posts timely is a surefire way to improve the organic reach of any post.
10. Don’t Be Stagnant
Take the information you cull from your analytics and adjust your strategy. Social media is fluid. This means your strategy must remain agile and flexible.
Don’t be afraid to change things up!
All 10 of these tips are useful and doable and should be included in any sound SMM strategy. As this piece shows, sharing quality “evergreen” content is a smart move for keeping your audience aware of SMM core principles.
Evergreen is always an important piece to any content strategy Neil. Staying on top of trends is important too, but evergreen as we know lives on and on.
Isn’t Google abandoning Google+ as that news is in numerous places on the Internet..?
Hi Rebekah,
You are spot on girl! Social media is powerful and I just love it! Engagement is the key. If you are not reaching out and engaging with others, who the heck would want to visit you?
When it comes to putting out our own content, we must be on social media. And yes, we cannot assume that everyone is on just one platform. We do need to be on several.
We need to know where are audience is. Well, they are everywhere, but when we analyze where we are getting the most “action” we can lean more toward that platform, but not forget the others.
I just love social media! To me it is the greatest thrill to chat with people all over the world.
I like the idea of being “trendy” because those certain trends do attract tons of attention.
Thanks again for such awesome tips,
-Donna
All good points, Rebekah. I think your point about engaging is particularly important, something a lot of businesses fail to do. It’s so easy to automate everything that we need to keep that human touch.
Rebekah,
Great article. Social Media is still one of my weak points and your stragegies will definitely assist me in creating a sound strategy. Will for sure bookmark this article. I like all of the stragegies but being tactical definitely was one I truly connected with because I am the type of guy that likes to stay organized and you have made that possible with your strategies. Thank you for sharing.
Love the 70/30 rule…that said I think on certain social media – like FB pages that may well be a different % as people need to get over the fact that a business is not there just to share images of cute kittens,,,, as if that is your buying criteria…something is very wrong…. 🙂
Great post Rebekah. My biggest issue is finding the time to post across all the social media platforms. Would you agree Google+ is more respected platform than Facebook in B2B communication’s.
Thanks Rebekah for more excellent advice. Keeping up with trends and willingness to change based on research and evaluations is so important. For me Google Plus is becoming more relevant and at the same time my Facebook Page is getting fewer views despite my efforts. So now I am studying Gplus thoroughly and learning how powerful it can be when you aim to engage your readers.
As usual Rebekah, you have covered all the bases.
I seem to be doing ok with social media, but taking part in the conversation is the one I miss the most. I think I mentioned that to you the other day, about the time zone difference. It is not entirely an excuse, but does not help. I have to try to interact more with people. That is the social in it all. Nice reminder!
ashley
Hi Rebekah,
You’ve provided an essential list right from knowing your targeted audience, generating content, the 70-30 rule, breaking down future posts, engaging the audience, providing solutions, branding, relevancy, being trendy and researching and evaluating. I’ll do this myself and see what I should do more in my blogging. Thanks a lot for this.
Hi Rebekah,
I have one query here, hope you help me out. I’m curious to know would you share same content of stuff on all social networking sites? I mean lets say if someone is following you on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ will find same stuff on all profiles. So doesn’t it make him/her bore?
Hey Everyone!
I agree great list! What I found to be most helpful was the ‘be trendy’ section. I think it’s a great reminder for all of us to keep up on the latest trends and news in our industries. It’s easy to get into a routine on social media and interact with the same crowd, but I think it’s important to expand your reach. Constantly add new blogs to your RSS feed, stay on top of industry related news, and continue to build your network!
Hi Rebekah,
Great article. I’ve been writing article for my target audience using keywords which my audience uses. I’m going to use the tips number 5 when writing articles and measure the results.
Again thank you for taking the time to write the article.
Practical and doable guide Rebekah. Getting tips #1 and 2 alone will be helpful to many businesses. Particularly find the “Take a genuine interest in your readers” the key to staying relevant and helpful and therefore attracting engagement. Thanks for sharing
Great tips Rebekah! I’m huge on engaging, and also, creating massive value to do social right. Thanks!
Awesome tips here. Good Basic Guidelines. Thanks, Rebekah!
In reply to your comment Marquita, that is a common issue even for those who aren’t using the social media platforms for business reasons.
Yes. Nowadays, you just outsource that work to a Social Media professional, or VA, to do all the basic tweets, follows, likes and casual comments up-to-date.
This will keep your presence felt amongst those who miss you when you are in book-writing-mode…not-to-mention, opportunities to further promote your work and bring in more income.
Great information … I just recently made sure that my username for everything is the same to make it easier for branding. I am still working on making and keeping to an editorial calendar. So many other things on my plate that it is just a necessity but takes a lot of thought. lol
Great list Rebekah. I know my biggest weakness when it comes to social media is consistency because when I get to working on a new book (like I am at the moment) I just can’t focus on anything else. I’m not sure what the answer is because that focus is critical when it comes to writing, so maybe one of my goals should be to hire a virtual assistant to help me. I like it!