Want More Success on Social Media in 2023? Start With a Strategy!
4 Advantages of a Social Media Strategy
According to a study by the Content Marketing Institute, 39% of companies that have a documented marketing strategy are more effective in content marketing than those that have a verbal-only or nonexistent strategy.
While many businesses are aware of the value of social media, a common pain point is not knowing how and where to begin. Alternatively, many brands who are active in some way find that they don’t obtain the results they expected despite their efforts, which results in frustration and poor ROI.
Here are 4 key reasons why creating a strategy is the right first step in incorporating social media marketing for your business.
A Social Media Strategy outlines your goals and keeps you focused
For your social media efforts to be effective, you need to set meaningful—and concrete—goals. The SMART goal-setting framework is an excellent place to start. Here’s an outline:
Specific: Choose goals that are clear, simple and defined.
Measurable: Your goals should have one or more metrics, like post reach, number of impressions or followers, etc.
Achievable: How achievable are your goals, based on your current standing?
Realistic: With your current resources (time and money), are your goals realistic?
Time-sensitive: Select a time frame to work towards
Having these in place at the beginning ensures that your social media activity is purposeful and value-driven at every step.
A strategy ensures your time and effort are being well spent
A social media strategy keeps you on track to reach your goals and maximizes your time and energy. Businesses without a thought-out plan or strategy risk posting aimlessly, and in turn, they do not see the desired results.
When our team at Social T. creates comprehensive strategies for clients, we outline which platforms are right for your business, factoring in your current team’s time, resources and existing knowledge, along with overall business goals.
For Macaloney’s Caledonian Distillery, we determined that Instagram and Facebook would be the ideal platforms to focus on, based on the brand’s highly engaging presence, distinctive branding, and human-focused vibe.
For one of our busy SaaS CEO clients, however, our team advised that LinkedIn and Twitter would be far more beneficial, given their emphasis on thought leadership and C-Suite connections.
Related reading: Social media strategy-building for food and beverage brands
A social media strategy gives you a clear content plan
One important—yet often overlooked—element of your strategy is your content plan. A struggle many companies face when using social media is figuring out what to post and how often. A good strategy includes content topics, ideas and details planned out at least several months in advance, so you can focus on running your business! Not only does a content plan ensure every post serves a purpose towards reaching your goals, but you’ll never run out of ideas for content.
You’ll also come away with a clear game plan of how often to post. Here’s an important quote from Neil Patel on posting frequency:
”If you post too infrequently, your audience will forget that you exist and you will quickly fade into the deep dark recesses of their minds. However, if you are posting too often, you will become a complete nuisance and they will dread seeing your posts overcrowding their feed.”
Related reading: How to build a social media strategy in 5 minutes or less
So what’s the ideal number? It depends on which platform(s) you’re using, and what your business is. This is why strategy-building is a game-changer. It gives you a clear, tangible posting schedule that is tailored to your unique brand.
As part of the comprehensive social media strategies our team creates at Social T., clients receive sample social media posts and a detailed, 12-month content calendar, complete with post themes, industry articles to reshare, relevant dates throughout the year and more.
Create an effective social media strategy with Social T.
No matter what stage your business is in, a solid social media strategy is key to ensuring your social media marketing garners the best results short term AND long term, whether that is increased brand awareness, sales, website traffic or thought leadership.
Need help creating a strong, value-driven social media strategy that is crafted for your unique brand?
“I really enjoyed working with Tara and her team at Social T. They provided us with an inspired strategic social media plan which they helped us to implement and gave us the tools to ensure seamless execution after our time together. We have seen an increase in our social media engagement and followers. Social T has given our team a renewed confidence in posting online and timeless tools to keep our momentum. Thank you for all of your hard work!”
“Working with Social T on our company’s social media strategy has been a wonderful experience. I gained so much knowledge in a short period of time that will really help with our online presence. The social media training sessions have been engaging and I have been provided with really great resources to refer back to.”