How to Create Your Social Media Strategy
Confused about which direction your social media strategy should take?
Every small business owner is strapped for time. But even as a strapped-for-time business owner you still have to pay attention to your social media strategy. But how do you actually create one? What are the steps that, once you follow, you’ll have a social media strategy that you can act on? Well, first you have to start by asking yourself 5 questions. Then after you answer those questions you can begin to add actions to the outline you have created. Finally, you execute and measure.
The first 5 questions you should ask yourself are:
What is the vision?
Knowing the vision of how you want social media to impact your business gives you a direction. Do you want to increase your brand awareness? Do you want to increase engagement among your clients?
What is the current status?
This is the baseline for all current platforms. How many followers do you have? How many retweets do you get? How much website traffic are you getting from social? Taking these measurements lets you know how successful your social media efforts are.
Who is the target audience?
Beyond age, income, and location really get to know your customer. What do they like? Are they into sports? Do they exercise? Like reality shows? Knowing these hobbies directly impacts how you interact with your audience. For example, if your audience is composed of classic car lovers posting about your experiences at a classic car show would receive great feedback even though your business is about event planning.
Who are my allies?
Who are the people that will share your posts, retweet you, and rave about you to others? Find and interact with these people to spread your brand awareness.
What are our goals?
Understanding specific goals that you are trying to reach allows you to come up with a plan to take action on. For example, you can have a goal of increasing your Facebook engagement and measure that by comments and replies.
After these 5 questions are answered you have the working foundation for your strategy. From there you can create campaigns around holidays or industry cycles assigning each goals, milestones, and metrics. Then, in your calendar, give each post a specific date that supports your overall marketing and social media strategy. Take a look at the example below.
Social Media Strategy Calendar Example
(Click on image for larger view)
By planning the implementation of your strategy you’ll be able to fully market ensuring your event and business success. And when it’s all done, you start all over again. A highly effective social media strategy is a living document. It responds and changes based on the knowledge you gain from your marketing efforts.
If you have questions, click the link below!
