Nearly 72 percent of America’s population uses social media.
If you own a small business, chances are you use social media to market, at least in some capacity. Do you have a social media content strategy, though?
Having one is important, and keeps your business on track. Keep reading to find the components your social media content strategy needs.
1. Target Audience
Establishing a target audience answers two questions.
- Who are you marketing to?
- Why are you marketing to them in the first place?
The answers to these questions will differ for everyone, but it’s important to establish them before anything else.
Rooting any plans you make in these two questions keeps your content on track and streamlined instead of confusing and all over the place.
2. Research and Analysis
Once you’ve established your target audience, it’s time to begin your research.
Look at other companies and what they’re doing. Look into things that have worked for you in the past. Search “Marketing trends for…” and insert the business you run, or the audience persona you’ve created (“Marketing trends for females 18-24”).
These are simple places to start, but you can build more ideas from here. Starting with a wide search allows more room to narrow your options in the future.
Find a sweet marketing spot and hone in on it, but remember that marketing trends change constantly, and it’s up to you to keep up with everything happening on social media.
3. Choose Your Social Media Platforms
Ideally, your business already has accounts established. If it doesn’t, this is the time to choose your fighter. If it does, this is the time to choose your best fighter.
Checking your analytics or looking into market trends for your field of business are two of the best places to gain insight. From there, you can see which ones are most effective for your business.
You can choose to stay active on the most effective ones or work to build the smaller ones up.
4. SEO
If your business has a blog, it’s crucial to utilize SEO. Start with keyword research, and then build from there. Target what it is your audience wants, and think about they’re searching for before you just start writing.
This service can help you learn the ins-and-outs of SEO. Remember, SEO and social media go together well and can help you climb to the top of those Google rankings.
5. What’s Your Style?
How do you interact with your customers? Is your brand a clean one? Is it family-friendly or a bit sarcastic?
Developing a rapport with your target audience helps them know what to expect when they’re interacting with your brand.
Do you repost everything your customers say about you? Do you like and comment on all your tagged photos? Have you ever messaged your followers to ask them questions?
Your followers can even help you develop this side of your business. Don’t be afraid to get on your Instagram Story and ask them questions. You’re allowing them to be involved in your brand, but you’re also gaining free insight on what they’re wanting to see from you.
6. Create Your Brand
Brand and style go hand-in-hand, but your brand is your theme. How you convey your business to your followers and the world.
This is your chance to be creative. Consider colors, fonts, a logo, business cards, even things you’d like to give away to your followers.
Are you an eco-friendly business? Maybe you focus more on fashion and fun. Are there certain things you want your audience to think of when they hear your business’s name?
Answer these questions when considering your brand, and apply it across everything you post and sell. Your business should emanate a cohesive theme, otherwise people get confused and move onto the next thing.
7. Gather Your Resources
This is where you bring everything together to prepare for execution. If you’re considering outsourcing this process to a social media manager, gather everything you’re wanting to create so they can come up with a plan for you.
Hiring a social media manager can make things a lot easier if you don’t have the time to create content and stick to a posting schedule, but you shouldn’t think you have to hire one for success.
No matter what, gathering your resources in one place — whether it’s a folder on your computer or a notebook filled with your ideas — gives you a better grip on everything you’ve considered for your brand and business.
8. Plan
Now it’s time to pull it all together. Grab that notebook. Open that folder on your desktop, and lay everything out.
Start with your research. Dive into the target audience and everything you’ve decided to market to them.
Move into the platforms you decided on, and choose whether you’d like to start a blog or not. Create a separate plan for building your SEO.
Double and triple check every choice you’ve made up until this point. Does it still make sense for your brand? Is it going to attract the traffic you’re wanting to gain?
Rework ideas accordingly, or know you’ve gotten everything perfect and move into executing your plan for the world to see.
Your Social Media Content Strategy Should Reflect Your Work
This sounds obvious, right? But you’d be surprised by how many people neglect to create a social media content strategy, and just dive into posting because they think they need to.
This results in a poor social media portrayal, which can reflect how others perceive your business. In today’s electronic world, your social media presence is a direct reflection of your business’s integrity. If you don’t put in the work that’s needed on social media, you could lose valuable customer interaction, no matter how great your product or service is.
