How to write a social media strategy

Tackling social media as a small business owner can be overwhelming, a total time-drain and a giant headache. It’s hard to know what to post, what’s going to land well with your audience and what’s going to help you turn your insta followers into repeat customers. Gone are the days of being able to post pretty beach pics with the hashtag #friyay. Customers are savvier than ever. The algorithms are smarter than ever. And businesses are needing to learn and adapt quicker than ever. It’s never been more important to have a social media strategy that works. That’s why today we’re sharing some of the things we include in our strategies.

1. Start with your why

Why do you do what you do? What do you believe your business can bring to the world? Consider the purpose of why you exist and write it down. Your mission and vision statements will inform the rest of your strategy and should therefore sit at the top of your strategy. 

2. Define your goals

Next step is to set some SMART goals. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. In other words, you need to think really critically of your goals and consider whether or not they serve you and your business. 

When I develop a strategy for a client I like to pick 2 – 3 goals to focus on and to attach some KPIs to (key performance indicators).

3. Define your audience

As much as you might believe your products and services are for everyone, it’s important to niche down and get really specific about who you’re talking to on social media. I do this in strategies by calling out 2 – 3 specific audiences and crafting a persona based on that potential customer. This helps you decide which platforms to focus your attention on as well as your content plan.

4. Develop your marketing funnel and consider the ways in which social media serves the sales process

One of the most important things you can do when considering how you use social media for your business, is to think critically about the journey that you’re taking your audience on. Some of your followers will be totally new to your brand and have no idea what you do/sell, who you are, what you believe and so on. Whereas others may have been around since day one and some of your most loyal customers. That’s why we take a funnel approach to our social media strategies, ensuring that we are attempting to meet each level of the funnel through our content. 

Top of the funnel (TOTF)

Top of the funnel is the stage where a potential customer or client is first made aware of your brand. Not everyone will continue down the funnel.

Middle of the funnel (MOTF)

This is where we build trust, answer questions they may have about your products or service, and we build confidence that our products and services do genuinely serve them.

Conversion

This is where we invite our audience to make a purchase by promoting a sale or special or any other kind of CTA.

5. Decide on your content pillars 

Content pillars represent relevant topics for your target audiences. Each of your pillars could be comprised of different types of content such as posts, videos or images. I choose 3 content pillars for each of my clients.

6. Do hashtag research 

There’s a lot of debate out there about the efficiency of hashtags and whether or not they’re worth using. What I’ve found overtime is that hashtags DO WORK. You can research by searching on Instagram and checking out what your competition are using.

7. Decide on a posting schedule 

Every heard of the saying that content is queen? Well if content is queen, consistency is king. None of this strategy will work if you can’t stick to a schedule that works for you. Whether that’s only posting a couple of times a week, or posting every day, decide on something that’s realistic and stay the course. 

And that’s it! Well, that’s a very simplified summary of a complex, ever changing topic at least. 

If you’d love to chat about your social media strategy or get some advice, we’d love to help! Send us an email at elise@higherdm.com.au and let’s grab a coffee.