How Do I Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy?
Let me just preface this by saying this is a pretty abridged version of how to do it BUT it gives you the framework to begin and get organised.
Short story: Goals + Reverse engineering
Long story: Before we get right into it, I want to ask you something.
Why are you on social media? What is your end goal?
Something that I see time and time again is that A LOT of business owners cannot answer this. They know they ‘should’ be on social media but they aren’t completely sure why themselves.
Obviously I can give you the answers as to why you ‘should’ be on social but it’s important the business itself knows and understands the reasons too or they will see the process as a time suck and a money suck.
So how does one go about creating a social media marketing strategy?
There are some small complexities to it such as knowing your ideal client or customer and figuring out your budget (because that can determine where you focus your energy). But overall, there are simply two main steps I implement for every client.
1. Figure out your end goal.
2. Reverse engineer the process.
The reason there are only two main steps for me is that both of the above steps determine ALL of the detail.
For example, if your end goal on Facebook is to generate consistent leads then you can begin to reverse engineer the process and ask yourself questions such as — how much work do I want? How much can I handle? Can I acquire these leads just from content marketing? Do I need to run ads?
These questions then determine the budget.
The platform itself inevitably determines the type of content or the format in which you deliver it (ie video and live video are hot right now on Facey so it’s a GREAT medium to begin implementing if you’re not already).
There are a myriad of other questions you could ask yourself to determine the answer to things such as frequency of posting, medium, campaigns, outsourcing, hashtags etc etc but you would be all *thumbs down* if I did a post that took you 183 minutes to read.
Anyway…
Because the process is THAT simple (not easy but simple), you can actually begin auditing your own social media accounts and make sure you understand your own end goals. This will help you stop wasting time in places you thought you ‘had’ to be and invest into platforms that give you the return you want and need.
Here are a few things to consider when creating your own strategy.
a) Do you have a budget? Content marketing as a stand alone solution is good but it requires patience. If your goal is to generate immediate leads then you need to consider throwing some cash at the platform.
b) Make sure the platform you choose is where your audience is. If you are having trouble with this, I suggest starting with Facebook. It really doesn’t matter what ANYONE says, Facebook is still hitting the home run when it comes to sheer user numbers and paid social.
c) Try different mediums with your content and find your comfort zone. Everyone thinks ‘comfort zones’ are bad things but when it comes to you and your strengths, you may as well knock it out of the park in a more traditional medium than get caught out at second base.
My only caveat to that is video is the next frontier and it’s already started so if you suck on camera, get someone you know to be that person. Start experimenting with really short videos. Practice on Snapchat. Repurpose onto Facebook and Twitter.
It really doesn’t get terribly harder than this. Yes, you need to optimise the platform to work in your favour; yes, you need to be consistent (schedule if it helps); yes, you need to know what you’re doing when throwing money at ads; yes, you need to spend time engaging and YES, you need to be able to understand what analytics are telling you.
You can pay someone to do that or learn yourself. There is HEAPS of good content around on that stuff BUT you CAN get started and you CAN make your own strategy.
Sarah is the Lead Strategist at Eleven Lights Media and is currently wearing: her Marvel cap #nerd.
