Terrified of TikTok? Intimidated by Instagram? Muddled around Myspace? Don’t be. Not least because the last of those hasn’t existed for years. If you’re thinking about using social media for your business, but aren’t sure where to start, here are a few pointers to help you put together a social media strategy.
Also, hello! It’s been ages since I’ve blogged. How are you?
OK. So we know that social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter can help you to connect with your audience, build brand awareness, and sell your stuff. But to set up an account for every platform would be time-consuming and annoying and rubbish. It’s far better to first work out what platforms will be best for you to use, how you should use them, and what you want to achieve with them.
A social media strategy can help you to focus. Here are the basics.
- Define Your Objectives
As yourself: What do you want to achieve through social media? Are you looking to build brand awareness (get people to hear about your company)? Do you want to increase engagement (get people to like and share your posts)? Or maybe you want to drive traffic to your website and generate leads?
Write down a few clear objectives – and that will help determine what content you put out
- Identify Your Target Audience
Who is your target audience? who are the people you want to reach?
When you know your audience, you’ll have a better idea of what content to create, and how to engage with them. It’s best to be specific: don’t just say ‘men’. Say ‘men between the age of 25-45 who are interested in grooming and hygiene’.
This will help you to define the tone of voice you go for in your social media, and might guide the graphics you use too.
- Choose Your Platforms
There are lots of social media platforms out there. Twitter is newsy and popular with people who want to stay up to date with current affairs, or express their opinions, or ask questions. Instagram is very aspirational – it’s about posting beautiful images. TikTok is full of fun, funny and educational short videos.
Do a little reading, and find out which platforms will be most popular with your target audience. And focus on one or two channels – don’t spread yourself too thin.
- Create a Content Calendar
A content calendar is just a schedule of what you plan to publish on social media. This might be images, videos, facts, links to blogs or your website.
Think about the types of content that will appeal most to your target audience, and decide how often you want to post. Once a day could be enough.
- Draft a Social Media Policy
This is simply a set of guidelines for how you and your team will use social media. It might outline the types of content to publish, how best to engage with followers, and what to do if you get negative comments. It will help make sure that all of your content is consistent, professional, and aligned with your amazing brand.
- Measure Your Results
Finally, you should work out how you want to measure the success of your social media strategy. Some useful metrics to look at are ‘Followers’ i.e. the number of people that follow you (you want to grow this number!) and ‘Engagement rate’, which in very simple terms is the percentage of people who have seen your post and have actively engaged with it. (Although they haven’t necessarily seen it – it’s just that it has been on their feed, and they might have scrolled past it). Engaging means liking, sharing, clicking a link etc. A good engagement rate is about 2 or 3%. That sounds very low, but it’s actually rather good.
Use metrics like these to work out what is working and what needs to be improved. You can make adjustments to your strategy as needed and continue to refine your approach until you are achieving your goals.
Good luck! And if you need help creating a social media strategy, get in touch!
Rob Stringer 