How To Create A Social Media Strategy For Your Small Business [2023]

Post A Job For Free, Promote It For A Fee

Post a Job

If you’re looking to gain brand awareness or simply have an online presence, social media is one of the best places to start. However, many companies find social media overwhelming. There are a wide variety of different platforms that are constantly evolving. This is why it’s so important to have a comprehensive strategy for social media.

What Is a Social Media Strategy?

A social media strategy is a calendar of content that your business wants to post to its social media feeds. It also includes the responsibilities of the social media team and the different channels it uses to promote the business. A strategy should also include goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) that tie into your company’s digital marketing strategy.

This master plan is your team’s guidebook on what to post, when to post it, and where to post it. It should include any content guidelines, content cadence, marketing campaigns, creative plans, and an engagement strategy. There should be an overall awareness of how to best connect with visitors to these pages as well.

Depending on your business, your tone and brand voice may differ from other companies but should stay relatively consistent across platforms. It’s always a great idea to be sure you’re clear on product or service positioning as well as any new and upcoming products or features that must be advertised.

Social media is often used as part of larger marketing campaigns to help spread the word about a broader message your business is trying to push. Because social media can sometimes be unpredictable, it’s a good idea to have someone responsible for the different sites to ensure questions or comments can be addressed in a timely manner.

How to Create a Social Media Strategy

Creating a social media strategy doesn’t have to be overcomplicated. In fact, it’s best to start simple and work your way up from there. There are a few different things you should consider doing before you tackle your strategy head-on.

1. Set goals. Every social media strategy should have goals. Consider what you want to achieve from social media and define your KPIs to understand what metrics are important. It’s a good idea to set metrics for individual channels, as each social platform differs slightly.

2. Research your audience. A good marketing strategy must understand the audience they’re trying to reach, and it’s no different for social media. Conduct market research through surveys, interviews, or focus groups and consider social listening. Create buyer personas to better understand how to target your audience.

3. Gain competitive insight. In any industry, competitor research is an important component of marketing strategy. Check out what your competitors are doing on their social pages and take note of what’s successful. You can also analyze their messaging and positioning as well as the frequency of their posts.

4. Choose the right social platforms. Because there are so many social media platforms, it’s important to only choose relevant ones for your business. Narrow down your choices by considering your audience and where they may spend the most time online.

5. Plan your content. It’s a good idea to create a content calendar for your social media strategy simply because consistency is key. This way, you’re not scrambling every time you’re posting on your social platforms. To take it a step further, consider a scheduling platform that can post your content for you.

6. Manage and engage. The best part of social media is that you can directly engage with your audience. However, active communities or platforms require direct management so it’s important you have an individual who is responsible for this task. Make sure you have processes for managing negative comments or crises.

7. Grow. Social media is built to grow. You can either grow with an organic approach or through paid advertising, but the best strategy is a little bit of both. Again, because these platforms differ so widely, your strategy may need to be adjusted depending on the platforms you choose to present on.

Social Media Management for Business

For business-to-business (B2B) marketing, companies may not target social media at the top of their marketing strategy. However, a digital presence for B2B companies is just as important as one for a B2C company. Although many B2B businesses were slow to catch on, digital is just as relevant in this space as any other. Here are some tips for staying on top of things:

• Align your social media goals with your business goals. Social media strategies should be aligned with your company’s business objectives. The marketing team should discuss how social media marketing can help them. For many organizations, social media marketing is used for brand awareness, building credibility, and educating their audiences on the value of their product or service.

• Engage with your audience. For many B2B businesses, social media communities can be extremely successful as a way to engage audiences as well as better understand their needs and pain points. Because social media is a little more casual than traditional marketing, it’s a good way to make your brand more approachable.

• Choose the right platform(s). It’s important to consider specific social media platforms as a B2B business. For a lot of B2B brands, platforms like Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, or TikTok may not be as popular as LinkedIn, Facebook, or Youtube. Because of the serious or technical nature of many B2B businesses, using traditional platforms are more likely to be successful.

• Build and share content your customers care about. Another consideration to make as a B2B business is finding new angles for content. Many times the content from B2B businesses can be stiff or overly technical, so finding ways to engage your audience is an important consideration. Think about how you can make your followers’ work lives easier or more enjoyable, and go from there.

Social Media Strategy FAQ

1. What are some good social media strategies?

   Any good social media strategy will incorporate interaction with your audience and attempting to connect with the people you’re hoping to reach.

2. Why is social media strategy important?

   A social media strategy is important because it will help you stand out against your competitors, grow your audience, and enhance your sales cycle.

3. How do you build a successful social media strategy?

   The best way to ensure your social media strategy is successful is to define goals, work towards them, and track your metrics.

Author

Caitlin Mazur

Caitlin Mazur is a freelance writer at Zippia where she has written 140+ articles that have reached over 1 mil viewers as of June 2023. Caitlin is passionate about helping Zippia’s readers land the jobs of their dreams by offering content that discusses job-seeking advice based on experience and extensive research.