It’s important to have a social media marketing strategy because it’ll help you stay on track when you’re feeling overwhelmed. It’ll also help you figure out which social media platforms are best for your business, so you don’t waste your time and money.
In this blog post, I’ll walk you through the 13 steps to build a winning social media marketing strategy from scratch.
1. Set meaningful social marketing goals
Setting goals gives your team a target to shoot for. A common rule of thumb for setting goals (and many other things in life) is the S.M.A.R.T. framework.
This simple acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
You should have a mix of short-, medium-, and long-term goals. And, remember that goals are not a “set it and forget it” kind of thing. Review and adjust your social media strategy to reflect your current goals.
2. Research your target audience
Who are you trying to reach? If you don’t know who your target audience is, you won’t be able to reach them on social media—or anywhere else, for that matter.
That’s why it’s super important to understand who your target audience is. And if you’ve been in business for a while, you may want to take the time to revisit who your target audience is, to make sure your social media marketing strategy is as effective as possible.
The more specific you can be about who your target audience is, the better. You want to get as granular as you can. This might even include using tools like address lookup to better understand geographic distribution or segment your audience by location, helping you deliver more relevant, localized content that resonates on social media.This will make it easier for you to find and connect with your target audience on social media.
Here are some questions to ask yourself as you build out your target audience:
• How old are they?
• Where do they live?
• What do they do for work?
• What do they do for fun?
• What are their pain points?
• What are their goals?
• What are their biggest challenges?
• How can you help?
• Where do they spend their time online?
3. Establish your most important metrics
You know you need to measure your social media efforts. But where do you start?
The most important metrics for your brand will be unique to your social media goals. That’s why you must select your top goals before you determine your most important metrics.
Here’s a quick refresher on our top goals for most businesses:
• Increase community engagement
• Increase sales
• Grow your app downloads or user base
• Increase website traffic
Pro tip: Keep in mind that your social media goals will influence your metrics. If you’re not sure how to set your social media goals, check out our guide on the topic.
4. Analyze your competition
Your business should always analyze what your competition is doing, but it’s even more important when you’re creating a social media strategy from scratch.
Why? Because it can give you a good idea of what’s working and what’s not.
You can find your competitors’ social media profiles and see what kind of content they’re posting, how often they’re posting, and how much engagement they’re getting.
From there, you can decide what you want to do differently and what you want to emulate.
5. Create and curate engaging social content
Your social media marketing strategy is obviously centered around content. At this point, you should have a pretty good idea of what to publish based on your goal and brand identity. You probably feel confident in which networks to cover.
Still, you’ll need to think about what your social media post and your copy will look like.
Visual content is key—use consistent branding, high-quality images, and design tools to elevate your posts.
To make your visuals even more polished, consider using tools that let you remove background from product shots, profile photos, or promotional images.
Here are some strategies to consider:
Social Media Content Ideas
A proven content strategy is essential to success. Consider creating a content calendar to keep your team organized and on the same page.
6. Make timeliness a top priority
Timeliness is a critical component of a successful social media marketing strategy. You need to be timely and proactive when it comes to responding to customer inquiries or feedback.
For example, a customer who complains about your brand on Twitter will expect a response within a few hours, not a few days. In fact, 72% of customers who complain on Twitter expect a response within an hour.
If you’re not timely, you’re not listening to your customers. And if you’re not listening to your customers, your social media marketing strategy is going to fall flat.
7. Assess your results and optimize
Your social media strategy is a long-term plan that outlines your goals and sets a course of action for achieving them. But that doesn’t mean it’s set in stone.
Your strategy should be flexible so you can adjust it as needed. That’s why it’s important to regularly assess your results and optimize your plan.
At the end of each month, take a look at your social media analytics. What’s working well? What isn’t? Where are you seeing the most success?
Use this information to inform your strategy moving forward. This might mean adjusting your goals, changing up your content mix, or reallocating your budget.
8. Build a social media team
If you’re just starting out, your social media manager will likely be you or someone on your marketing team. But as your business grows, so should your team.
In addition to a social media manager, you’ll want to add a team of specialists to help with content creation, design, data analysis and more. You may also want to consider hiring a social media agency through a hiring platform to help you scale your strategy and free up time for your team to focus on other tasks.
9. Secure executive buy-in and budget
Last but not least, you need to secure executive buy-in.
Social media marketing is a time-consuming endeavor, and you need to make sure you have the budget to support it.
Your budget should cover the cost of any tools or software you need, as well as the cost of creating content.
If you’re planning to run paid social media ads, you’ll also need to budget for that.
Be sure to do your research and come up with a realistic budget that you can present to your boss.
10. Automate and manage your content
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the thought of managing a social media strategy, don’t worry. There are plenty of tools that make it easy to schedule and manage content across multiple social media platforms or emails.
Hootsuite is one of the most popular social media management tools out there and it’s free to use for up to three social media profiles. You can schedule posts, track your performance, and even monitor keywords and conversations happening online.
Other popular social media management tools include Buffer, Sprout Social, and Zoho.
11. Listen, engage, and build relationships
Listening is a big part of any social media strategy. You need to monitor your competition, your industry, and your audience.
It’s a good idea to use social listening tools at this stage to monitor conversations. You can also use the search features on each social network for free.
Social listening is a great way to find out what your audience is saying about you, your competition, and your industry. It’s also a great way to find out what people are saying about your brand on social media.
Engagement is a crucial part of building a successful social media strategy. When you engage with your audience, you build trust and relationships. You also increase the likelihood that your content will be seen by more people.
Engagement can take many forms. You can respond to comments on your posts, like and share other people’s content, or ask questions to encourage conversation.
The key is to be genuine and authentic in your engagement. Don’t just comment on someone’s post because you want them to engage with your content. Take the time to actually read their post and leave a thoughtful comment.
Social media isn’t a one-way street. It’s a place where companies and customers can meet and build relationships. If you want to build a successful social media strategy, you need to understand the value of relationships.
You should aim to build relationships with your followers and other businesses in your industry. You can do this by engaging with their content and having conversations.
You can also use social media to build relationships with influencers and other thought leaders in your industry. This can help you increase your brand’s visibility and credibility.
Another powerful way to build meaningful connections is through well-executed events. Events can bring your online community together in the real world, strengthen brand loyalty, and generate buzz across platforms. For this, it’s highly recommended to work with an expert agency like Ch3 Agency, who specialises in creating impactful brand experiences.
12. Plan and assess
You won’t know if your social media marketing strategy is successful unless you define what success looks like.
While you should be able to see an increase in metrics like engagement, followers and website traffic, it’s important to set specific goals so you can measure your success.
For example, let’s say you want to increase website traffic from your social media channels. You would track the number of clicks to your website, then see if you’re meeting your goal.
Pro Tip: You can also use UTM parameters to track where your website traffic is coming from. And if you’re driving users to lead capture pages, don’t forget to implement form tracking to measure how well your social content contributes to actual conversions.
13. Work with influencers
Influencer marketing can give your brand a major boost in reach and credibility—especially if you’re just starting out or entering a new market. By partnering with influencers who align with your brand values and have an engaged following, you can quickly build trust and awareness with the right audience.
One effective way to scale your influencer efforts is by building an affiliate program. Tools like ReferralCandy make this easy by allowing influencers and brand advocates to earn a commission for driving new sales. It’s a win-win: you only pay for results, and your influencers are motivated to promote your products authentically.
Start by identifying micro- and mid-tier influencers who already talk about similar products or services. Reach out with a clear value proposition and invite them to join your affiliate program. Over time, this can evolve into long-term brand ambassador relationships that pay dividends in traffic, sales, and brand loyalty.
Conclusion
You’re now ready to begin making your social media content calendar.
Just like blogging, you can’t expect to see results from social media unless you are consistent and give it time. You can take the steps outlined above to build a successful social media strategy for your business.
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