If you jump straight into social media without a strategy then you’re setting yourself up to sink. To stay afloat in these tricky and treacherous waters, you need to do your research, plan ahead and stretch the limits of your creativity. And with more of your competitors gaining momentum on these platforms every day, you simply cannot afford to fall behind. Read on to come aboard and learn 3 crucial steps for creating a solid social media strategy.

Step 1:  Readying your Sea Legs – Assessment

If you’re reading this article then the chances are you’ve already decided it’s time to set sail on the social media oceans. And you might be feeling positive but do you really know where you are, where you want to go and what you want to achieve? Ask yourself ‘why social media?’ and you could find that your following thoughts answer those questions. Here are some pointers to make sure you’ve got it all covered…

Your Audience

Your audience are at the heart of everything you do and they should be your primary reason for setting up on social media. Therefore, you need to identify your audience’s needs, wants and challenges. If you haven’t already, do your research by setting up surveys, asking for customer feedback via email and looking into your competitors. The more you learn about your audience, then the better you can tailor your content.

There are five key benefits of knowing your audience on social media:

1. Focus – you can create highly-targeted content that resonates instantly.
2. Break barriers – you can confront your audience’s challenges to build trust.
3. Language – you can relate to your audience and win their engagement.
4. Empathy – you can respond to your audience’s need.
5. Position – you can become an important source of information in your sector.

Your Aim

Once you’ve got a solid idea about your audience, your next step is to decide what you want them to do. This is your aim and will usually be one of these three things:

• Build awareness
• Improve sales
• Build loyalty

Of course, loyalty and awareness can both lead to sales but consider these 3 things as 3 separate goals and stick to one. Consistency and simplicity are both key to taking this step.

When you’ve decided on an aim, it’s time to get really specific and face one of the hardest tasks in the assessment process. You need to hone in on the one thing that makes your brand what it is – the one thing that’s at the core of what your business does. And this will affect every decision about content you ever make on social media.

Your ‘one thing’ will drive your aim so write it down, make a mental note, have it tattooed if you must – just don’t lose sight of it!

Measuring

It’s very important that you plan how you will measure the success of your strategy. And what and how you measure will vary depending on your key aim:

• If you’re aiming to build awareness then you’ll need to measure growth in audience, engagement, shares, likes and subscribes.
• If you’re aiming to improve sales then you’ll be focused on click-through rates, e-commerce sales figures and conversion rates.
• If your aim is to build loyalty then you’ll measure engagement, sentiment and influence.

And besides taking measurements relevant to your key aim, it’s also worthwhile to monitor overall trends. These metrics may include mentions of your brand, your products, people at your company and your competitors.

Get it on Paper

Creating you social media strategy isn’t just about throwing up ideas in a meeting and agreeing on what you think will work best. You need to nail your communication policies by getting your strategy on paper. Put together a detailed guide that incorporates everything that anyone working in social media for your business needs to know.

A good social media guide will address:

• What your key aim is for social media
• What you need to measure
• Who your audience is
• Which networks you will target
• Who is responsible for what in our social media team
• How to respond to negative comments
• How the social media pages will be used
• When the social media pages will be used
• Examples of the ideal style of content

Setting down a solid social media strategy guide will not only ensure that your ship is sailing on the correct path but will also maintain consistency around your brand.

Step 2:  Setting Sail – Execution

The way is set and the wind is high –the next step concerns implementing your social media strategy.

Create a Content Calendar

Now your editorial guide is complete, you’re ready to translate your policy into action. But you still need to organise when this action will take place. Create a calendar for sharing your content and make sure it includes:

• Who will create the content
• When and where it will be shared
• How often it will be shared
• How it will be delivered

The better organised your content sharing then the easier it will be to implement and measure.

Plan for Growth

You social media efforts don’t begin and end on the platforms. There are lots of other ways to get your content in front of your audience. Here are some ideas to get started:

• Incorporate social media buttons on your website and social media sharing buttons on your blog.
• Run contests or promotions on your social media platforms and offer rewards. E.g. ask your audience to like or share your content in return for entry into a competition.
• Drive traffic to your social channels by setting up webinars and guest blogging.
• Promote your networks across all of your marketing materials, including your emails, letterheads and business cards.

Step 3:  Gaining Momentum – Measurement and Improvement

Your ship has sailed but are you reaching your best speeds? About two or three months following your set up on social media, it’s time to evaluate your progress. Take this opportunity to look at what’s worked well right, what hasn’t, what’s missing and how you can fine-tune.

Evaluate

Meet with your team and make sure plenty of numbers and data are brought the table to be discussed. No matter how simplistic your metrics, they will help you to make key decisions about what’s working and what’s not. Include time in this meeting for brainstorming new ideas and adjust your social media strategy in writing, as relevant.

Take it up a Notch

If you’re successful enough to gain some great speeds this early on then it could be worthwhile to add some more advanced strategies to your plan. If the wind is high then why not secure more sails to pick up speed?

Some extra steps you could take include:

• Implementing Facebook ads  – sponsor your most popular content or advertise your page to build you fan base.
• Run a competition across channels – gain more fans and engagement.

Every business’ social media strategy will be different and churn out different results. But most simply, to make a successful journey across these waters, you need to know your business, know your aim and know which metrics matter.