how to develop a social media strategy
step by step
step one it's all about setting goals
what do you want to get from your social
media presence you want to get more
branding you want to generate some sales
you want some leads you want some clicks
to your website so that way people click
on your ads
you know for me i want to become a
thought leader in the digital marketing
space i want people to become aware of
my company np digital's area of
expertise which is digital marketing and
i want to manage my brand's reputation
i want to increase my traffic to my
website and i want to improve my
community engagement you see these are
all examples of stuff that are my goals
that i set and i want to also deliver
amazing content through my social
channels that help other people out in
other words you want to figure out what
your goals are and set them because
depending on your goals you're going to
have to decide if you want to drive more
leads more conversions more brand
awareness direct sales right
you'll be able to figure that out once
you know your goals and that'll help you
attain them
now here's a key thing when you're goal
setting you want to be smart and here's
what i mean you need to be specific
your goals need to be measurable they
need to be obtainable don't set up some
high in the sky goals like i want a
million followers in a day they need to
be relevant
if a hundred thousand followers doesn't
move the needle for your business then
it doesn't really matter
and they need to be time-bound in other
words they need to be specific to a
certain time frame whether it's a week a
month a year
that's how you create smart goals in
other words you want goals that you can
clearly measure whether that you're on
track or not whether those goals are
going to help you hit specific business
goals or not so then you can adjust over
time and that's why you want to use
smart goals the second step is for you
to select the social media channels that
can help you achieve those goals let me
give you example if i want to use social
media to drive more conversions and
sales there are platforms that would be
more suitable for that goal facebook for
example is still helpful when it comes
to driving conversions the same isn't
always true with instagram where you can
only share links through stories or your
bio and they don't really give you a ton
of clicks on the other hand if you want
to become a thought leader in my
industry like digital marketing linkedin
and youtube is extremely helpful on
youtube i can publish long-form in-depth
videos that showcase my expertise and
help viewers learn from my expertise on
linkedin i can publish thought-provoking
written posts designed to engage people
from my industry
so the social media channels that you'll
choose are totally dependent on the
goals you have
i would recommend that you start off
with only one or two social media
channels because the more that you add
right away it becomes more overwhelming
you're going to spread yourself then and
you're not going to really get the
results that you want
then you can diversify add more social
channels later on and you can repurpose
your content of course
the third step that you need to take if
you're already on social media is to do
a social media audit and that doesn't
need to be that complicated you can
focus basically on identifying what's
going well and what isn't here are a few
things that you need to check how fast
or slow is your account growing in terms
of followers if there are any particular
days or times in which you have gained
or lost more followers than you
typically do and why
what content is generating the most
engagement from likes to comments
comments really help things go viral to
even shares or even saves
now what are those content formats
what content types are doing the best is
it videos images carousels written posts
what types of messages that users love
and want to engage with the most what
causes your audience to leave the most
comments
tell me this you've posted a ton on
social already leave a comment below and
let me know what type of content or what
messaging has caused the most comments
for you
and when you're doing this think about
what are user demographics that cause
those type of people to engage most
what's their age their gender their
location their language these things are
important because if you know that their
location is let's say in india you
wouldn't be posting your messages on
pacific standard time let's say in the
middle of the afternoon because those
people in india are probably sleeping
then knowing exactly where your page is
doing
will allow you to create a plan so that
way you can double down on what's
working and that's important so you
don't waste time the fourth step that
you're going to take is to create a
profile of the audience that you're
targeting
what are the age groups that you're
going after
what are the interests that your target
audience has is there a specific gender
that's more relevant to your brand
what are the cultural phenomena that
your audience is really interested in
how can you leverage that more you can
use google analytics if you have a
website to get idea of what
people are already interested in or at
least your audience is interested in or
you can use your facebook page insights
and instagram insights to do the same
where existing audience is what a
valuable source of information that is
that most people don't look because it
has data for you that you should be
using beyond that you should check out
facebook groups forms quora reddit you
can even use tools like uber suggests
for research to figure out the pain
points people have because in uber says
there's a keyword ideas report that
breaks down common questions that people
are asking
the fifth step that you'll do is you
want to look at competitive research now
what i want you to do is create a list
of five social media accounts that are
doing really well in your space they
don't need to be exactly in your same
industry but the closer they are the
better worst case they need to be in a
similar nature related industries most
importantly these accounts should be
targeting the same audience or similar
audiences that you're going after so
let's say you're focused your brand on
business owners in the united states
who are let's say 35 years or older
you'll want to find accounts that cater
to the same audience they may not be
about marketing like mine they could be
about just business advice and here are
some of the things that i would want to
learn from these accounts in other words
that you would also want to learn from
these accounts what are they doing to
promote their content how often are they
posting what are the types of content
that they're posting from the content
format like videos images carousel
shorts reels to even the messaging
itself
what are the social channels that these
brands are leveraging and how are they
using these channels to cross promote
each other so they can get more
followers on all the other social
networks so let's say you're analyzing a
princess account you can identify which
keywords that they're ranking for
what are they really doing to make their
pinterest account popular what are the
posts that are gaining engagement versus
the ones that aren't or on tick tock is
there anything that they've done that
they've posted that's gone viral and
what's the topic that content why did
that go viral what are the posts that
they posted that didn't do well because
that's probably the stuff that you want
to avoid
step six it's time to create a list of
the different content types that work
best for each social media channel
before you can actually start creating
your plan and scheduling your content
creation it's important to understand
what works best in each channel after
you've done your audit and competitive
research this becomes much easier your
goal is to list out all the different
types of content and which platforms
they work best on so that you can create
a schedule that makes sense for each
channel
step seven is to create a content
calendar that encompasses the channels
you want to focus on and the content
types that work best for each one of
them
now that you already know who's your
target audience what makes them tick and
the type of content works best for each
channel it's time to start using that
knowledge to come up with the schedule
you'll want to use a tool like hootsuite
or post planner to organize your efforts
to ensure that you're on track
to move forward as quick as possible so
you get the results you're looking for
now if you need help with your social
media marketing check out my ad agency
np digital if you have any questions
leave a comment below i'm here to help
you out thank you for watching