If you’re a diligent business owner, then you likely already know that social media can be an incredible tool for marketing your business. You might understand the value of social media marketing and maybe even the necessity for a strategy behind it, but you also may be asking yourself, ‘what is a social media marketing strategy?’

Will my social media marketing strategy be the same as a marketing strategy? Do I really need to have a social media strategy?

We’re going to discuss all things social media marketing strategy related, and answer all of your burning questions!

Social Media Marketing Strategy Defined

Simply put, a social media marketing strategy is a clearly laid out plan of everything that you intend to do in order to be successful on social media. Social media for business means using social platforms to connect to your audience and reach your specific goals.

In the past, social media may have been seen as a set of recreational tools for users, however it has quickly become a powerful marketing tool for businesses and their ability to reach their ideal customers.

The idea is that by investing time in connecting to your audience, you are better able to build brand awareness, increase sales, and drive website traffic. This gives you a return on your investment of time and money.

Having a targeted and well thought out social media marketing strategy to support your investment is essential to your success in using social media to market your business. Without the support of a social strategy, you run the risk of distributing content that is irrelevant, or even incorrect.

The main purpose behind social media marketing is to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. If you produce social media content that falls outside of these lines, it can fall on deaf ears without the proper audience to engage with it. Poor content may even end up hurting your business if it is not valuable.

Content that isn’t valuable is seen as ‘noise’ on social platforms which can dissuade users from wanting to follow and engage with your brand. You will want to have a solid intent behind everything that you do on social media in order to get the best results.

Is a Social Media Marketing Strategy the Same as a Marketing Strategy?

Your social media marketing strategy is not the same thing as your marketing strategy, rather it can be thought of as an important element of it. While a marketing strategy looks at the strategy of your marketing efforts as a whole, including traditional methods, a social media marketing strategy focuses only on the social side of things.

Use your marketing strategy to paint a picture of what your business’s marketing looks like overall, and then get more specific with your social media marketing strategy.

Social media marketing for business is booming, for both B2B and B2C businesses, so it’s certainly an important element to include in your overall marketing strategy.

Elements of a Great Social Media Marketing Strategy

Now that you’re aware of what a social media marketing strategy is and why it is important to have, you might be wondering what it should include. Here are some of the essential elements to include when creating your social media marketing strategy!

Goals that set up your intentions and provide a means of measurement

Setting goals in your strategy will help you to outline what you are trying to achieve, and give you an idea of what you can expect from your efforts. Goals should try to follow the SMART acronym which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time bound.

By following these characteristics for setting goals, you can more easily create, develop and achieve your goals.

Over time you will be able to look back on your goals and see if you are meeting them. Goals can also provide a solid means of measurement, especially when they are properly defined with SMART.

Platform choices with meaning

It may be tempting to throw content up on every channel you can get your hands on, but not every social channel is going to be right for your business.

Choose your platforms based on your targeted audience and what social channels you expect them to be active on. This way you have meaning behind your platform choices which better serves your marketing purposes.

For example, a B2C business selling clothing may find it easier to reach their audience through a platform like Instagram. They can show their product through imagery and reach the ideal consumers that already use this platform.

A B2B business on the other hand may find a platform like LinkedIn more useful for reaching their audience as it is a platform specifically catered to professional business and networking.

A content creation plan

There are many different types of content that you can utilize and benefit from, but it will be important to think about which ones will make the most sense for your brand. Your content plan should help present your product or service in a way that will help your customer rather than sell to them, as the connection you want to make is human to human.

Content should always be valuable and should be delivered during times that make sense to your unique audience.

Engagement tactics for further results

Along with the content you put out, you will want to take the time to engage with your audience. Engagement comes in the form of likes, comments, and shares, and helps you to further build your connection with your audience.

A plan to evaluate and adjust your social media marketing strategy

Once your social media marketing strategy has been established, the work on that strategy doesn’t stop there. It will be important to make it a part of your ongoing efforts to evaluate what is working and what isn’t within your strategy, and make effective adjustments.

It will be important to once again look at your intentional goals and see if they are being met through specific metrics.

For example, if your objective is to grow your brand by building awareness, you would look at metrics like follows, shares, likes, etc.

If your objective is to drive leads and sales, you would look to see if you are gaining conversions with metrics like website clicks, email sign ups etc.

You can rely on trial and error to help figure out what methods are best for your business and help you to adapt to changes within your industry.

Get Started on Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

While these elements are certainly important to helping you to craft a great social media marketing strategy, there is even more to consider!

Putting together your social media marketing strategy can be overwhelming, which is why Asset Digital Communications is here to help. Contact us with your questions, or to get help on creating a strategy for your business that can deliver the results you’re looking for!