10 Steps to Creating a Winning Social Media Strategy

Social media has completely transformed the way businesses market themselves online. It has altered how they interact, respond and meet customer needs.

Whether you are in a large or small company, social networking is your online connection to potential clients and customers.

Social media gives you the opportunity to turn your fans, followers and subscribers into raving fans and ultimately, marketing evangelists for your business or brand. It offers visibility, unlike any other marketing medium.

Given the power of social media, it is critically important for businesses to not only get social, but implement the best strategies and processes for scalability, efficiency, and successful social engagement.

Build a Winning Social Media Strategy

1. Know Your Target Market

Social media usage can vary from one demographic to another. Take time to research and understand exactly how, when and why your target audience is using social media platforms.
It is also vitally important to identify your target demographics’ preferred social media platform so you can make your strategy focused and direct.

2. Take the Time to Craft Your Content

Don’t create content for content’s sake – Carefully think through the message and goal of each post, before diving in and creating any content online.

Whether it is a Facebook post or a blog article, every word you write should support your end goal.

Is the goal to drive traffic towards your latest service? Or simply just spotlighting a product for the month. Whatever the case, it is important not to lose sight of the end goal you want to achieve.

3. Create a Cross-Platform Strategy

The most successful companies and brands leveraging social media are expanding their influence across several platforms.

Aside from being on Facebook and Twitter, they’re enhancing their brand with Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, Tumblr, and blogs articles.

4. Keep Your Branding Consistent

While setting up accounts on different social media platforms, make sure your logo, color scheme, fonts, and graphics are consistent.

You want to ensure that your brand is easily identifiable irrelevant of where people connect with you.

5. Mix it Up

Don’t just cling to the same old “picture with a caption” format or layout.

The best social media strategies constantly change tactics when it comes to posting, whether the content is a link, image or just text.

Try mixing things up by incorporating Infographics, quotes from your latest post or even answers to questions. The principal objective here is to create content that people will interact with either by clicking on it, commenting, or sharing it.

6. Engage Your Audience

Once you start to catch the attention of your audience, make them feel special.

Respond to their comments, soothe concerns and answer any questions. You must stay consistent in your messaging and maintain a professional demeanour for your brand.

7. Use the 70-30 rule

The 70-30 rule follows this strategy: maintain 70% engaging content and 30% promotional.

The 70% should be fun, interesting and of use to your users. Get your audience involved in the conversation, rather than making them feel like they are being “sold” something every time you post.

This keeps your audience engaged and interactive, so when it becomes time to promote, they are more likely to value whatever information you are sharing with them.

8. Check Your Analytics

Research should be the foundation of any social media strategy.

Google Analytics can offer a rich database of statistics and analytics that can help guide your posting and strategy decisions.

Leverage this data to learn as much as possible about which content is having the greatest impact with your community. Then evaluate how and why some content works, and some fall short.

9. Keep Up with Industry Trends

One of your top priorities should always be to keep up to date with trending topics and stories relevant to your target market.

This can enable you to make your posts timely, which is a sure way to improve the organic reach of any post.

10. Reassess, Revise, and Rework

Take the data you collect from your analytics and then adjust your strategy accordingly. Social media is about being flexible, so make sure your strategy remains agile and adjustable, to get the best results.

Do not be afraid to change things up!