What is a social media strategy and why do you need one? 

Put simply, a social media strategy is the who, what, where, when and why behind all the content you’re posting.

In just seven easy steps you can tailor the perfect content plan for your business – keep reading to find out what.  

1.Goals and objectives 

If you don’t know why you’re putting together a social media strategy then it’s over before it’s begun. It’s imperative that you have clearly defined goals and objectives that you want your campaign to achieve. Perhaps you’re looking to drive traffic to your website and generate sales? Maybe you want to do some guerrilla marketing to get the name of your brand out there. Or maybe it’s all about building a loyal audience and following. Whatever it is, make sure you’ve got your targets set in stone before doing anything else. 

2. Audience 

Now you know why you’re working on your social media plan, the next step is to decide exactly who it’s for. Start by asking yourself who you want to be seeing your content. Are you looking for new customers and clients? Or are you speaking primarily to your existing staff and others in the sector?  

Once you’ve worked that out, it’s time to build an audience persona. Put simply, this is a small profile of what your ideal audience looks like. For instance, if you’re a recruitment agency and you’ve decided that you want to aim your content at jobseekers for midweight and senior roles, then your audience persona might be professional people aged 30 and over with a corporate background and interests in finance, networking and career development. Make sure to keep this persona in mind throughout every following step of the process, and craft all your content specifically for them. 

3. Competitor analysis 

Knowing what others in your field are doing is important. Have a deep dive into your competitors’ social output on as many platforms as possible and make notes on the learnings. What are they posting about – and how often are they posting it? Are they using videos and graphics, and is the content unique to each platform or cross-posted? Take stock of what you like and what you think works and be sure to incorporate this into your strategy. Similarly, be sure to note what you don’t like and don’t think works – and then avoid it at all costs. The aim of this stage is not to copy competitors or get bogged down in following their every move. Rather, it’s to give you an idea of what your audience might be expecting and what they like to see, as well as to spot gaps in the market that you might be able to fill. 

4. Social content audit 

If you already have an existing social media content plan, then now is the perfect time to reflect on what you’ve been posting.  Run through the analytics of all the platforms you use and take a look at what’s working and what isn’t. What platforms are getting the best results? What sort of content is generating the greatest reach and engagement – and what isn’t? Are there any other patterns you’re noticing? Use these results to set yourself KPIs going forward and have these at the front of your mind whenever you’re working on content. These will be the barometers of your success (which you can continue to tweak as your results improve). 

5. Tone of voice and brand guidelines 

Now you have an idea of who you’ll be speaking to and what platforms you’ll be reaching them on, you can start to shape your tone of voice. This is where you can carve out your brand’s own personal identity that will help you to stand out from the rest of the pack. Keeping your audience persona and platform-specific quirks in mind, play around with some sample copy and see what feels natural for you. Whether you feel brash, strident copy is the way to go or want to keep it more conservative, this is what will be representing your brand, so make sure it fits seamlessly with your vision. This is also the time to consider visual stylings if graphics and videos are going to be part of your strategy. 

6. Content strategy and themes 

The previous steps should make this relatively straightforward. What topics do you want to talk about, and how often do you want to talk about each one? And which topics best suit which platform? You might find LinkedIn suits posts about new appointments better than Instagram, for instance. Keep things relatively simple at first – the more you post, the more analytics you’ll have and the more you can tweak your themes and balance to provide the perfect blend for or audience. 

7. Content calendar 

Lastly, get cracking with your content calendar! We’d recommend a scheduling platform like Agorapulse, but if this isn’t possible you can just map your content out in a spreadsheet. Work out how many posts per week you want to schedule, and then map them all out in your calendar. Try planning a month’s worth of content in one swoop according to the strategy and themes you decided on in the previous step. Once you’ve got that, it’s finally time to start drafting your first batch of content.  

If you want to explore what social media strategies can do for your business, don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team at eden. Contact us at enquiries@edenpr.co.uk or call 0115 9588850 to set up an exploratory meeting.