9 Steps To Creating A Social Media Strategy

Ahh, small business owners. The dreamers of many dreams, and the wearers of many hats. You might not be a marketing expert, but—gosh, darn it!—you are going to do your level best to use social media to share your brand story, connect with potential clients, and drive more sales. 

The best way to use social media for your small business is to follow a carefully crafted content strategy. Not sure how to craft a content strategy? We’ve got your back! Keep reading to discover the 9 steps to a successful content strategy (and pssst: skip to the end if you’re ready for the easiest possible way to deliver great content!). 

How To Create a Social Media Strategy in 9 Easy Steps

Ok, Busy Small Business Owner: here’s your step-by-step guide to make a social media strategy that works for you. 

Step #1: Know Your Audience

This is Marketing 101. You can’t market to the right people, when you don’t know who the right people are. 

And we’re not just talking about simple demographics here, like ‘women’ or ‘dog owners.’ We’re talking about really zeroing in on those demographics—think ‘women in their 40s who have small children at home’ or ‘dog owners with small dogs who live in big cities.’

The more you can narrow down your audience, the most successful your efforts will ultimately be. 

Step #2: Pick The Right Channel For Your Audience

Once you’ve identified your super specific target audience, you need to do research to figure out what social media platforms they’re using. No sense making a killer strategy for Instagram, for example, when your customers spend all their time on LinkedIn. 

Step #3: Run An Audit On Your Key Platforms

OK, chances are you’ve been on social media for awhile, even if it hasn’t been performing like you’d like. But what has worked? What platforms work better for you? What types of content? Knowing what’s worked well in the past can help point you towards the right kind of content to make in the future. 

Step #4: Determine Your Goals

Again, this is a place to get really nitty-gritty. Don’t just tell yourself you want ‘more engagement.’ Decide what that will actually look like for your platforms. 

And a word to the wise: the overarching goal for any marketing effort is to make more sales. For social media marketing, that often looks like sending warm leads to your website, collecting email addresses, and/or increasing brand awareness. 

Step #5: Decide What Content You Need To Meet Your Goals

There’s a whole world of content options out there. To succeed on social media, you need to be sharing the right blend of content, from user-generated content, to simple graphic posts, to videos, infographics and more. Think about what you can create, as well as what your specific audience wants to see. 

Our guide to 7 types of social media posts for your business can help you get started. 

Step #6: Set Your Content Schedule

Be realistic here. Yes, ideally, you will be posting every day. But you should only ever be posting top notch content. If that means you have to post a little less, that’s ok. 

The best rule of thumb: post consistently and post quality content. Do that (hopefully at least 1-2 times a week), and you’ll be a step ahead of the game. 

Step #7: Create Your Content

Time to flex your creative muscles! This is where you get to do the fun work of designing your captivating graphics and writing your compelling copy. Do you best to keep things on brand, and always do a final proofread before posting anything (in other words, typos are a no-no!).

Protip: if you’re not a great photographer, you can still get a large batch of evergreen, beautiful content you can use indefinitely with a stylized brand and/or lifestyle shoot with one of our photographers. So much better than using stock photography to get by!

Step #8: Schedule Your Content

Like we’ve already established, you’re wearing lots of hats. So don’t make having to remember to post every day be another ball you have to juggle. There are lots of apps and services out there that will let you schedule your posts in advance. Use them!

Step #9: Track Your Performance — And Growth Hack Your Results

You’ve followed steps 1-8, and you’ve got lots of great content going out to your followers on a regular basis. That’s great—but it’s not time to kick back your heels and relax yet.

That’s because it’s now time for what might be the most important step of all—tracking your results. And using those results to ensure you’re continually maximizing your efforts and getting the best possible results. It’s called ‘growth hacking,’ and if you’re not doing it well, you’ll be missing out. 

How To Create A Social Media Strategy in One Easy Step

We said it was ‘easy,’ but clearly, managing social media properly still takes time. 
If you don’t have the time (or, let’s be honest, the desire) to learn how to do market research, run audits, figure out content (and then make it), and then track your results in an actionable way, then don’t worry. There’s an alternative, and it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.

Specifically, when you work with a marketing collective, you can get a tailormade social media strategy that works with your goals and your budget. If you can find a team you can trust (and follow our tips for working with a marketing team), then suddenly, you can take ‘creating a social media strategy’ off your endless to-do list! 

Our marketing collective can help you build a thriving social media community that supports your long term goals. We’ve got great social media packages for entrepreneurs who are budget conscious, as well as for those who are ready to invest and scale up quickly. Reach out for a free consultation.