How does your social media strategy stack up?

It's easy to be overwhelmed when thinking about each social platform, and which content to promote to whom.

A social media marketing strategy will help your business tackle its goals with a sense of purpose--giving you a clear plan for how your business will use channels like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Here are some of the key steps you'll need to identify your goals, engage audiences and optimize your results.

First things first: you need to figure out what you want out of social media writ large. Looking for more customers? Trying to engage a new demographic? Want to become an influencer in your industry? Perhaps you want to bolster your brand and achieve a larger share of voice in your marketplace?

You should strive to set goals that are actually attainable. By tackling smaller, realistic goals, you can scale your social efforts in a way that’s both reasonable and affordable.

Research

It's advisable to get a clear pulse on your industry. If you're not doing so already, follow your competitors and see what they're doing that seems to be working. Follow everyone that follows you. Dig through your existing social channels and monitor/listen for specific keyword, phrase or hashtag use. This analysis will help you better understand how to position your own brand both on social media and off.

So much of what you need to know about your audience to influence your social media marketing strategy is already out in the open. Each channel has it's own analytics, and there's a wealth of tools out there to package up this information. Gender, age range, income, geo-location: these data points give you valuable clues on how to target your content.

High level takeaways

Once you feel familiarity with your audience segment (and prospects), the work of targeting your messaging and visualbrand content begins. Some general pointers:

• Facebook and YouTube are both prime places for advertising, due in part to their higher-earning users
• Instagram users are under the age of 30, signaling the strength of bold, eye-popping content that oozes with personality
• Women vastly outnumber men on Pinterest, key in targeting social shoppers
• LinkedIn’s user base is well-educated, making it a hub for in-depth, industry-specific content that may not be suited to Twitter or Facebook

Creating your brand content may seem like a herculean task but here are a couple of shortcuts:

The need for businesses to produce video is greater than ever. Across all networks, social video content is among the most viewed and shared hands-down. Facebook and Instagram, in particular, are pushing video hard. Whether live, long-form, short looping cinegraphs, there's no shortage of options for brands to play the role of producer these days regardless of your budget. Grab your smartphone (invest in a tripod and light) and get going!

Lastly, we can't stress enough the value of curating user-generated content from branded hashtags. Customers today absolutely love authentic content that doesn’t seem too stiff and polished. It also means means less work on your plate and less pressure to constantly be thinking of new ideas.

Look out for our next post on Metrics - what's important in measuring social media success? We’re here to help you tailor your strategy to fit your business goals more specifically. Let’s talk: hello@boyleandpartners.com.