Creating a Social Media Strategy That Works For You, With Examples

As Erik Qualman, the author behind Socialnomics said, “We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media; the question is, how well we do it”. This rings true for all ambitious businesses, who can increase their success with a clear social media strategy to compete on channels such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

However, it’s a task often viewed with trepidation, with many brands wondering exactly how to create a social media strategy. Addressing these concerns, this article will explore that subject, including the benefits, distinct stages, elements and examples of social media strategy. Because the strategy you follow should consistently align with your audience, offers and brand identity.

Why Do You Need a Social Media Strategy?

If social media is a landscape, a strong strategy becomes the map to find your destination. A plan worth having, HubSpot argues “It encompasses social content guidelines, posting cadence, social media marketing campaigns, target audience, and engagement strategy that promote your business and brand”. In other words, it defines how a business should use social media channels to meet its marketing ambitions.

With Forbes stating that 4.9 billion people use social media globally, brands of all sectors can enjoy the fruits of their strategy. Today’s world is interconnected, bringing opportunities to connect and build robust customer relationships.

Here are three additional benefits of developing a customised social media strategy:

• It helps you show up and project a consistent brand.

• You can hone in on your target customers with content they’ll find appealing.

• Results can be tracked and improvements made with ease.

However, there are risks associated with the failure to develop a strategy for posting on social media. These range from failing to know what to post each day, confused messaging, a loss of momentum, wasted opportunities to promote your offer and disappointing results.

How to Create a Tailored Social Media Strategy in 5 Simple Steps

1. Set your goals

Knowing what you want to achieve with social media marketing is half the battle. Do you want to increase sales, elevate your brand’s profile or direct more traffic to your website? Measuring your success in metrics including impressions, audience growth rate and how many people you’ve reached, these should be defined individually for each social media platform you consider.

2. Define your audience

The next stage of developing a social media strategy is to research what will appeal to your target social media user. Social listening (including the adoption of relevant trends), interviews, polls and focus group participation are great tools to achieve a deeper understanding.

Delve deep into your competitor’s social media posts to find out what’s working for them. What types of language do they use and what do their followers engage with? The answers to such questions can inform your social strategy. Researching how, when and which demographics are using individual social media channels is also helpful. Combine this with audience personas or ideal customer profiles and you can confidently create onbrand messaging that resonates.

3. Select the best social platforms

While all industries can harness the potential of social media, it’s always important to consider the relevance of your goals and target audience. Does your customer or client base gravitate towards the B2B nature of LinkedIn? Or are they more likely to be searching for a photogenic holiday destination shown on Instagram?

Knowing your audience’s preference shouldn’t limit your strategy to a single social media platform, however. Starting with one or two is a popular strategy. Just ensure you’re posting content that varies across each channel, rather than the same text and media.

4. Get Creative!

Now that your research is complete, it’s time to plan two things.

Firstly, you’ll need to define your content formats. Will you create posts with static images, reels, stories or videos? We’d advise choosing more than one format for visual interest. When writing or creating each post, you (or your team) should ask if it’s consistent with your brand’s narrative, personality and tone of voice.

Secondly, knowing what content (and when it) should go live is made much easier by having a content calendar for each platform. To remain consistent and save time, many brands use scheduling software. Yet you should never ‘ghost and post’ as this is bound to make your audience feel undervalued and potentially unfollow you.

5. Monitor and remain flexible

Expect to measure, optimise and tweak the social media strategy you adopt, after reviewing the analytics for your account. There’s a world of data that offers business owners powerful insights. This allows you to see what is and what isn’t working. It helps you to alter course and refine your social media content moving forward.

Social Media Strategy Examples

While every brand should develop something unique, you can observe crowd-drawing examples of social media strategy among the following businesses.

MG

Looking to rise above the general noise of the automotive industry and appeal to families in the launch of their M3 and M6 models, De Bono Marketing was delighted to support its campaign. Including on social media!

Our efficient and strategic thinkers got to work on targeting this demographic through fun social media content. We assessed what matters to consumers (as parents) and how MG’s vehicles solved their pain points. The solutions were on-brand, optimistic and simple messages accompanied by a funfair-themed campaign. Discover the case study here.

Automate UK

Another example of a social media strategy is the Automate UK rebrand. Our expert creatives formed and executed a social media strategy that communicated their new message to the target audience.

Content calendars for multiple platforms were carefully crafted, incorporating compelling visuals, to remain consistent and convey Automate UK’s brand identity to potential affiliate members. We intended to generate a significant buzz. It worked, with an average click-through rate increase of 40% across key platforms. More importantly, we successfully amplified the trade association’s rebrand messaging, including on-brand social teasers.

Let Us Reach Your Target Audience

The five steps to a rewarding social media strategy should be informed by your brand identity, goals and target audience. Having a dynamic plan in place reduces wasted resources and encourages brand consistency, helping your business flourish and evolve its messaging on Instagram, LinkedIn and other platforms.

Buoyed by the examples of a social media strategy noted above? Contact De Bono Marketing and fire your growth!

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