If you want real results from your social media marketing efforts, like engagement, conversions, and increased brand loyalty, every step of the planning process should be intentional.
Let’s break down 8 actionable tips for building a solid social media strategy.
Set clear goals
You can’t formulate a strategy if you aren’t sure what you want to achieve. Why are you planning to use social media? Is it to drive traffic to your website? Grow brand awareness? Boost sales? All of the above?
Your specific goal(s) will shape your approach. For example, if you’re after more leads, you need to focus on value-driven content with strong CTAs. If you want to build a community on social media, your strategy should prioritise authenticity and engagement.
When setting goals, it’s best to follow the SMART acronym: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely. Simply stating that your goal is to “get more followers” is vague and unquantifiable. How many followers is “more”? What social media platform does this goal relate to? In what time frame do you hope to achieve it? Instead, specify a goal like “grow Instagram followers by 20% in three months”.
Understand your audience
Knowing your audience goes a lot deeper than just demographics. Sure, understanding the age, gender, and location of your audience is key, but understanding psychographics is what really drives results.
What are your audience interested in? What are their biggest challenges, and how can you solve them? What do they value the most? Consumers don’t want to be constantly sold to via social media; more often than not, they want to feel seen and heard. Knowing what your audience really cares about will help you create content that builds trust and loyalty.
Choose the right platforms
A mistake that many businesses make when branching out onto social media is feeling like they need to appear everywhere, but this is the wrong approach. You only need to be where your audience is. If you’re looking for B2B decision-makers, you need to be on LinkedIn. Millennials tend to lean towards Instagram as their platform of choice, and the majority of Gen Z reside on TikTok. That being said, there is plenty of demographic crossover within each platform, so it’s likely that focusing on just one isn’t the answer either.
Another thing to keep in mind is that different platforms offer different content formats. TikTok is the reigning supreme short-form video content platform, but Instagram, while traditionally static image-based, now also puts a high priority on short-form videos (reels). For a pure image-heavy strategy, Pinterest could be the ideal platform, and if your desired content type is more focused on long-form thought leadership, LinkedIn may be more suitable for your needs.
Consider how many social media accounts your internal team can feasibly manage (and look into enlisting the help of an agency if your plans are bigger than your resources!), and then select from the most suitable platforms for your needs. Start with fewer platforms and optimise your strategy before expanding. Quality over quantity. Always.
Develop a content strategy
Following straight on from “quality over quantity”, setting a clear content strategy helps ensure consistent, on-brand, and valuable content. Here are some things to consider:
- Content pillars: Behind-the-scenes, educational tips, client testimonials, etc.
- Posting schedule: When and how often you’ll post on each platform.
- Tone of voice and visual aesthetics: Fun and casual? Professional and sleek? Link this closely to your branding and values.
- Formats: Carousels, reels, single images, graphics – embracing variety (while keeping your content relevant) is key.
Batch-producing content and using scheduling tools can help manage the workload, but this isn’t an excuse to spam out low-value content just because you can. If you do schedule ahead, make sure to still react to any timely news or trends as they emerge, and take time to evaluate your strategy and make regular adjustments (more on this later)!
Engage consistently
Don’t use social media as a broadcast channel; it should be a two-way conversation. You need to be interacting with your audience by replying to comments and messages and commenting on other people’s/brands’ posts.
Social media offers plenty of opportunities to engage with your audience, such as interactive features like polls and Q&As, so utilise these throughout your content. It’s also beneficial to weave in content that invites responses from your audience. Ask questions like “What do you think of our new product range?”, or “What’s your favourite song right now? Let us know in the comments!”. Again, keep these conversation-provoking questions relevant to your brand, content, and audience.
Consistency and communication build trust. Plus, social media algorithms love when you’re active on the platform!
Leverage paid advertising
If you have budget available, paid advertising is a great way to scale quickly on social media. Don’t get me wrong, spending £100 a month isn’t going to boost your account up to 1 million followers overnight, but it’s a great way to increase visibility on the platform, especially when you have something new or exciting that you want to promote.
Some considerations for paid social advertising:
- Ensure clear targeting: Don’t waste budget on the wrong audience!
- Use strong creatives and copy: Scroll-stopping visuals and value-packed messaging will get you the most bang for your buck.
- Utilise A/B testing: Split-test everything, from headlines and CTAs to visuals, especially in the early stages.
Even with a small budget, paid social advertising can have a large impact on your results.
Track and analyse performance
It’s easy to just post on social media and then hide away from the results, especially if your content isn’t performing the way that you’d hoped. But it’s important to reflect on what’s working well and what isn’t, in order to optimise your strategy as you go.
Many platform-native analytics tools are pretty good (e.g., Meta Business Suite, LinkedIn Analytics, and TikTok Pro), especially if you’re just starting out with social media, but investing in third-party tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social can enhance your analytics experience.
The specific analytics you track will depend on the goals that you set earlier, but some that you may keep an eye on include engagement rate, reach, impressions, clickthrough rate, and follower growth. You can use this data to refine your content, posting times, and targeting.
And finally, if you take one single tip from this blog post, let it be this: do not get caught up obsessing over vanity metrics!
Stay updated and flexible
Social media is extremely volatile. Algorithms shift, trends emerge seemingly overnight, and new features are launched with very little warning. You can stay informed by following industry news publications (e.g., Search Engine Journal and Marketing Week), social media tools’ blogs (e.g., HubSpot and Sprout Social), and influential social media marketers on LinkedIn (e.g., Annie-Mai Hodge and Beth Ward). Subscribing to industry newsletters is a great way to get the latest updates straight to your inbox!
You can also keep track of this volatility through your own experiments. Continuously test new content formats, and adapt your strategy based on what’s working best.
A solid social media strategy isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach; it should be fluid, flexible, and grow with your brand. By staying goal-driven, audience-focused, and open to change, you’ll build a presence that not only looks good but performs. The brands that win are the ones that evolve.