Want to fine-tune your social media marketing strategy for 2023?
Great! Now is the perfect time to make this happen.
In an environment where there are more competition, content, and networks than ever before, a straightforward strategy makes it necessary for you to say ‘no’ to efforts that don’t meet your goals.
That’s why we’ve put together a detailed overview of creating a social media marketing plan from scratch.
Whether you’re new to the social space or want to double-check your priorities in 2023, this guide has you covered.
1. Set goals that make sense for your business
Let’s start with a quick question.
“What do you want to leave social media?”
Social media strategy planning starts with your goals.
According to 2023, the most common social goals are to increase brand awareness (58%) and increase community engagement (41%). Whether you’re trying to build a more significant following or a more active community, taking the time to define your social goals is the first step to achieving them.
Either way, your goals will define your social media marketing strategy and how much time and effort you need to devote to your campaign.
Sample social media goals for 2023 and beyond
What matters is that you establish realistic social media goals.
- Emphasis on “realistic,” by the way. We recommend dealing with smaller goals that allow you to scale your social efforts reasonably and affordably.
Here are some sample goals that businesses of all shapes and sizes can pursue.
✱Increase brand awareness
This means getting your name out in the public domain. To create authentic and lasting brand awareness, avoid posting only promotional messages. Instead, focus first on content that emphasizes your personality and values.
✱Generate leads and sales
Whether it’s online, in-store, or directly through your social profiles, followers don’t make purchases by accident. For example, are you about reminding customers about new products and promotions? Are you integrating your product catalog into your social profiles? Are you running exclusive deals for your followers?
✱Grow your brand’s audience
Bringing in new followers means finding ways to introduce your brand to people who haven’t heard of you before.
Growing your audience also means discovering the most important conversations around your business and industry. It’s almost impossible to tap into them across your social channels without monitoring or listening to specific keywords, phrases, or hashtags.
Maintaining your finger on the pulse of these conversations will help you grow your core audience (and reach out to neighboring audiences) faster.
✱Boost community engagement
Index data shows that 46% of consumers believe that brands that engage their audience are best on social networks, so it pays to explore new ways to capture the attention of your existing followers. This means exploring messaging and content. For example, does your brand advertise user-generated content and hashtags?
Even something as simple as asking a concern can increase your engagement rate. Your customers can be your best cheerleaders, but only if you give them something to do.
✱Drive traffic to your site
It’s easy enough. If you’re focused on producing leads or traffic to your website, social media can make it happen. Whether through promotional posts or social advertising, focusing on conversion rates and URL click-through rates can help you better determine the ROI of social media.
Any combination of these goals is fair game and can help you better understand which networks to tackle. If in doubt, keep your social media marketing strategy simple rather than complicating it with too many goals that could distract you. Please choose one or two goals and rally your team around them.
2. Take time to research your target audience
It’s scary news for marketers to make assumptions.
With only 55% of marketers using social data to understand their target audience better, this is a massive opportunity for leaders and practitioners.
Much of what you require to know about your audience to influence your social media marketing strategy is already available, and you have to know where to look.
With the right tools, marketers can quickly research their audiences. No formal market research or data science skills are required.
Remember: different platforms attract different audiences
Take today’s social media demographics as an example. These numbers talk directly to which networks your brand needs to approach and what types of content to post. Below are some key takeaways for your 2022 social media marketing strategy:
- Facebook and YouTube are both top places for advertising, partly due to their high-earning user bases.
- The top social networks for millennials and Gen Z are Instagram and YouTube, demonstrating the power of bold, jaw-dropping, personality-filled content.
- Women far outnumber men on Pinterest, which has the highest average order value of any social shopper.
- LinkedIn’s user base is well-educated, making it a hub for in-depth industry-specific content that may be a lot more niche than what you see on Facebook or Twitter.
Don’t spread yourself too thin. Instead, focus on the networks where your core audience is already active.
Do your homework on your existing social media audience
While the demographic data above gives you insight into each channel, what about your customers? Further analysis is needed before you can determine what your real-world social customers look like.
That’s why many brands use social media dashboards to provide an overview of who is following you and how they are interacting with you on each channel.
3. Establish your most important metrics and KPIs
Regardless of your goals or industry, your social media strategy should be data-driven.
This means focusing on the social media metrics that matter. Instead of focusing on vanity metrics, dig into data that directly aligns with your goals.
What metrics are we talking about? See below for a breakdown.
Reach:
Article reach is the number of unique users who see your posts. How much of your content reaches users’ feeds?
Clicks:
This is the number of clicks on your web content or account. Tracking the number of clicks on each campaign is crucial to understanding what drives curiosity or encourages people to buy.
Engagement:
The total number of social interactions is divided by the number of impressions, and this reveals how your audience perceives you and how willing they are to interact.
Hashtag performance:
What are the hashtags you utilize most often? Which hashtags are most closely associated with your brand? Having these answers can assist shape the focus of your future content.
Organic and paid likes:
In addition to the standard number of ‘likes,’ these interactions are attributed to paid or organic content. Given how difficult organic engagement is to obtain, many brands are turning to advertising.
Understanding these differences can help you budget your ad spend and invest in the different formats.
Sentiment:
This is a measure of how users react to your content, brand, or hashtag. Did customers find your recent campaign offensive? What types of emotions are people generating about your campaign hashtag? It’s constantly better to dig deeper and find out what people are talking or feeling about your brand.
An efficient social media marketing strategy is rooted in numbers, and that means that the numbers need to be put into a consistent context with your original objectives.
4. Create (and curate) engaging social content
No surprises here. Your social media marketing strategy depends upon your content.
At this point, you should have a good idea of what to post based on your goals, audience, and brand image. You may also feel confident about which networks to reach.
But what about your content strategy? Here are some suggestions and motivation to help you.
The importance of sticking to content themes
Chances are you’ve seen a brand’s post that feels just like theirs.
From graphics to scrolls and beyond, many brands rely on the same content formats and ideas repeatedly. These themes can assist you in becoming more consistent and zeroing in on a content strategy that makes sense.
For example, you can cycle between memes, product photos, and user-generated content while sticking to a defined color scheme. If you have a hard time keeping up with all these sources of social content, consider using a social media management tool to help you organize your media library and schedule your posts in advance.
Content ideas for social media marketing in 2022
To help narrow down exactly what you should be posting about and to ensure you are developing innovative content, below are some social media trends to consider.
Stories and time-sensitive posts
Stories are not going away. Using your followers’ FOMO (fear of missing out), story-based content is interactive and unmissable. By default, this content appears first in your followers’ feeds and can help your brand account ‘skip the queue’ and stay fresh in your audience’s minds.
Stories are precious for taking your followers behind the scenes and making your social media feel more personal. For example, you could consider using stories to cover an event or take your followers on a journey without taking them out of the comfort of the ‘gram.’
Short-form video
- 54% of marketers say that video is the most valuable type of content for achieving social goals, and for a good reason.
- Social video is booming, especially with the rise of TikTok and Instagram Reels.
- Long-form and short-form pieces dominate the social space across all platforms due to their high engagement rates.
Furthermore, thanks to advances in DIY and remote video production, you don’t need a large video production budget plan to be effective. All you need is a laptop or smartphone and some tricks of the trade.
Posts that show off your human side
As we (finally) move on from COVID-19, both personal and human content must be a cornerstone of your social media marketing strategy. Don’t hesitate to remind followers of the human beings behind your posts.
Pro-tip: conduct a competitive analysis to help your content stand out
- Before you begin creating content, you should have a good idea of what your competitors are up to.
- While some brands may want to research third-party competitor analysis tools to dig deeper into their competitors’ numbers, you can find a lot from a simple review of your competitors’ social presence.
- The easiest way to discover your competitors is through a Google search. Find your most valuable keywords, phrases, and industry terms and see who comes up.
- Then, see how their social channels compare to your promotional strategy.
- The objective here is not to imitate or steal your competitors’ ideas, and no two companies’ social media marketing strategies can (or should) be the same.
- Instead, determine what is working for them and what conclusions you can draw to tailor your campaigns accordingly.
- After identifying some of your industry rivals, you can use competitive analysis tools to compare your competitors’ performance with your own quickly.
See what they are posting on Facebook. Compare your Twitter engagement with theirs. Please find out how they’re tagging their content on Instagram. Optimize your strategy. Go round and round.
5. Make your social presence as timely as possible
For marketers, timeliness is arguably more important than ever.
Not only do you have to put out fresh content regularly, but you also have to always be ‘on’ for your followers.
However, you can’t always expect customers to operate on your clock. Timeliness is a tall order when you are strapped for resources or belong to a small team.
Let’s look at some suggestions to maximize your schedule and the time you spend in the community.
Post at the best times to engage
Quick question: when is your brand available to engage and communicate with customers?
You may see some recommended times, such as posting in the evening. But what’s the point of posting at the ‘preferred’ time if your team isn’t there to communicate?
Instead, attempt to make sure your social media or community manager can answer any product questions or concerns when you tweet or post. Take the time to review the best times to post on social media. However, it is equally important to interact after posting.
That’s our next question.
Respond to your customer questions and shout-outs ASAP
Your customers expect a quick response. 47% of people believe that reliable customer service defines a top-notch brand on social media.
On social media, as a brand, you can gain respect by engaging with your audience. That’s why social customer care is so essential for brands that want to increase awareness among their audience – word gets around fast about excellent service.
Whether it’s using words of praise or responding to questions, businesses shouldn’t leave customers hanging. According to our research, social is the number one preferred channel for consumers to share feedback and deal with service issues or questions.
However, did you know that most users believe brands should respond to social media messages within four hours Assigning teams to specific response tasks can help your staff run like a well-oiled social media team, whether you’re one person or 100?
As social algorithms evolve, organic content is becoming harder and harder to reach the majority of your audience. The last point you want to ignore engagement and lose the opportunity to feed more information into your marketing funnel.
6. Assess what’s working, what isn’t, and how to keep improving
By now, you need to have a broad understanding of your social media strategy.
However, it is essential that you can adapt your strategy throughout the year.
Without continually analyzing your efforts, you will never know how effective one campaign is over another. Having a bird’ eye view of your social media campaigns helps to put things into perspective.
This means that when your content stagnates, you can look at your best performers and adjust your campaigns.
There’s no rejecting that a lot of social media is a matter of trial and error. Keeping track of the metrics behind your campaigns in real-time enables you to make minor adjustments to your social media marketing strategy somewhat instead of sweeping, time-consuming changes.
A lot of social media marketing done right comes through being diligent with your data. You can passively get the most out of your ongoing campaigns in the short term and then proactively use those gains to inform your following strategic change.
It’s also important to report data to share valuable insights from social with your colleagues.
Based upon your data, you can better assess whether your KPIs are genuinely aligned with the overall company objectives or whether changes are needed.
7. Bring other departments into the mix
- Social media teams are in a unique position to understand customer sentiment.
- You are your brand’s eyes and ears online.
- These insights don’t just inform marketing strategy, and they can transform your business.
- Yet, according to Index data, only 39% of marketers use social data to support other departments.
- In 2023, outstanding social media teams will approach cross-departmental collaboration with enthusiasm and intent.
Which departments can benefit from social data
A short answer? All of them. But don’t bite off more incredible than you can chew. Instead, start where you think you can make the most significant impact. Here are a couple of concepts to kick-start your strategy.
HR
We remain in an incredibly competitive job market. Working with HR on a social-first employer branding campaign can do more than fill vacant positions quickly, and it can also attract stronger, more qualified candidates.
Sales
We surveyed 250 firm executives and found that 90% expect social to be the primary communication channel for connecting with customers in the future. Sharing social insights with your sales organization can enable sales reps to work smarter in an increasingly digital customer journey.
Product and merchandising
- When managing your brand’s social inbox, you’ve probably received a considerable number of feature or product requests.
- With a social media management tool, you can distill this information into actionable insights for your product or marketing team.
- These insights can complement existing roadmap research to create a customer-centric plan that will delight people.
- And with that, we’ve rounded up your guide to social media strategy for 2022 and beyond.
- The best way to reach your audience is through social media. It’s a great way to update people on your latest event, offer freebies, and share all the things you’ve done for others.
- But with numerous such platforms available, it can be hard to know where to start.
- With so many different strategies under the sun, how do you decide which one is right for you? One strategy that has worked well for bounteous companies is updating their social media pages daily.
- For example, if you are doing an event on Saturday, use that day’s social media post as a promotion.
- You could also try posting updates on Facebook or Instagram stories throughout the week to keep your interest heightened.
Here are 12 different strategies for content creation on social media
1. Regularly posting on social Media
One great strategy for content creation is posting regularly. Not only does this create a more regular stream of content for your followers, but it also helps you build relationships with them. They feel more connected to you and are more likely to engage with your posts.
Think about what people want to see from you on your social media feed: Updates from your company’s website, special offers, or the latest news about your team members.
If you’re still on the fence about which strategy will work best for you, then try out all 12! You’ll be able to see which ones yield the best results in no time!
2. Let your audience know what you’ve been up to
Social media is a unique way to communicate your brand message to your audience. It’s also an excellent way to share the latest happenings associated with your company.
One popular strategy on social media is daily, weekly, or monthly blog posts, which are often an extension of the company’s website content. This lets you stay in touch with what people are interested in and inform them about new product releases and upcoming events.
Another strategy is sharing videos and images on social media, which can be done through YouTube and Instagram stories. These types of social media updates allow you to engage with your audience more personally rather than just posting content on a website.
You can also use Facebook as a way for you to connect with people during the day. It is another effective strategy because it allows people to ask questions or talk about specific topics that interest them. It may also give others who want to learn more about your business the chance to do so.
3. Share your latest work or event
Your social media feed is a great place to share your latest work or event.
Take advantage of the opportunity to share your latest work with your audience. This could be anything from an important update about a project you’re working on, an announcement about a company event, or even pictures of what’s happening at your office.
Keep in mind that people will want to see what you have been up to lately so they can stay updated. You’ll also have the opportunity to keep people engaged by asking them questions and getting feedback on past events or new projects.
4. Offer something for free
- The unique strategy that has been proven to work is offering something for free.
- People love getting their hands on freebies, especially if they are of excellent quality and can be a giveaway or a promotion.
- If your brand offers something for free, it will grab people’s attention and attract their interest.
- And if you run an event where you give something away, you’re likely to get more customers because of the buzz.
- Even if your product is not currently on sale, offering something for free will help you build momentum and raise the number of people interested in what you have to offer.
- Plus, it’s an excellent way to connect with your audience and remind them that you care about them!
5. Comment on other people’s posts
Commenting on posts is the best way to engage with your audience, and you can share the things you love, respond to questions, or say hello. It’s also a good idea to comment on posts similar to yours to start a conversation and build connections.
You don’t have to comment every day on your social media account. Just make sure that you have time blocked out each week for this activity, so it doesn’t fall off the radar.
More often than not, posting content when your audience is most engaged will lead to the best results. Find out what times of day resonate with your followers and post during those times.
6. Get feedback from your audience
- One of the main things you can do to drive social media success is get your audience’s feedback.
- They’re the ones who’ll be able to tell you if your posts are resonating with them.
- Social media posts aren’t just a one-way street—you have a chance to interact with your audience, and it’s an exceptional opportunity for you to find out what they want.
- The easiest way to get feedback on your social media content is by asking questions.
- Asking people about their thoughts, likes, and dislikes can help you determine the type of content that will work excellent for you and your audience.
- You want to learn what they enjoy to use that information in future posts.
- Another great strategy is using polls or surveys that ask your followers what they like or dislike about specific topics and will also help tailor future content to appeal to their needs better.
- If you keep up with how people react to your social media posts, it will be easier for you to create new content that appeals specifically to them.
- Nowhere else are your customers more invested than on social media!
7. Share your brand story in the digital age
Social media is a potent tool to tell your brand’s story, and it gives you the possibility to share your brand’s history, update people on what you have been doing recently, and more.
Let’s use a real-life example to demonstrate how social media can tell your brand’s story.
A popular restaurant in America has recently opened a new location in San Francisco. They are using Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to update their progress with construction, events they will be hosting, food specials they have going on for January, and more.
They are also using their social media pages for branding purposes—sharing photos of their new location, what the restaurant looks like from the outside and inside with captions that link back to their website or app.
8. Create content that will go viral
To reach a broad audience, you need content that will go viral. Any business needs to make content that is engaging and interesting. When this happens, it’s easier for people to share your content on social media or even email it to their friends.
Think about what makes your audience tick and create content that will speak directly to them. If you want to create the best marketing strategy possible, think about what content would be most relevant and engage your audience the most.
Social media posts should also have a call-to-action, so people know what they’re supposed to do next after seeing your post (i.e., “eat at our restaurant,” call customer service). It helps generate more interest in your business and keeps people coming back for more.
9. Link with influencers or other brands in your industry
Excellent search engine optimization (SEO) is a must to grow your business.
The challenge?
Countless small businesses don’t have the time, skills, or expertise necessary to grip everything with a logical SEO strategy.
From keyword research to content evaluation, from page optimization to internal linking, it’s simple for companies to end up with a universal web presence that doesn’t inspire engagement or drive conversions.
This piece will tackle critical outsourcing operations, including how it can benefit your business and why SEO can’t be entirely outsourced.
10. Offer giveaways in exchange for following you
One strategy that has worked competently for many companies is updating their social media pages daily.
For example,
- if you are doing an event on Saturday, use that day’s social media post as a promotion.
- You could also try posting updates on Facebook or Instagram stories throughout the week to keep your interest heightened.
- Offering giveaways in exchange for following you is a great way to stay top of mind with your audience.
- Additionally, it can help people build relationships with your brand and be more likely to purchase from you when they’re ready.
This strategy also helps you build relationships with influencers who are interested in your content but aren’t following you yet—and those influencers might come back to follow you and share their thoughts about the giveaway after they’ve received it!
11. Turn off comments if you want to avoid trolls and spam
- To avoid trolls and spammers, you can turn off comments on your social media pages, which will stop people from leaving rude remarks or spamming your page with irrelevant posts.
- You can also choose not to allow people to tag photos or videos on your posts.
- Turning these features off will leave it up to your followers to interact with each other and have a more personal experience with your brand.
12. Make it a competition for comments on Instagram
One way to increase engagement on your social media posts is by making
- it a competition for comments. You could also try asking questions to get people talking about your brand.
- For example, let’s say in your caption, you ask, “What do you love most about this photo?”
- This question would encourage people to talk about the picture and their reactions to it, and it would also get more likes and shares because people are interested in what others think.
This strategy has been successful for many brands that have seen increased followers through this strategy.
Wrapping Up
This guide emphasizes that modern social presence has a large number of moving parts.
That being said, putting your social presence together doesn’t have to be a drag.
If you set actionable goals and address each of the steps above, you’re already ahead of the game regarding your social media marketing strategy.
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