Welcome to Social Media 101 class of 2024, today we’ll be learning How To Form A Great Social Strategy.

Wanting to improve your social media game, but no clue where to start? A good social strategy sets you in good stead for growing awareness of your business and helps you stand out from the competition. The average amount of time people spend on social media is higher than ever, at 151 minutes on average a day – so there’s no better time than now to harness this.

Step 1: So, how do I start?

The first step is to plan. There are many different factors that come into play when deciding a social strategy. Start off simple: what is your primary goal? This can range from raising brand awareness, increasing engagement, or even building more of a community.

If you’re struggling, analyse your previous content. If you already have a social media presence, you have concrete evidence of what your followers will engage with, and what they won’t. Build your strategy on this – but don’t be afraid to experiment and mix things up.

Try to avoid focusing your goal on vanity metrics, such as increasing follower count. Although these can look great on the surface, they don’t always translate to tangible business results.

Determining your audience

Identifying your audience will be a factor in deciding what type of content you need to produce, and what channels your business needs to be on.

If you’re a food venue targeting under 25’s, TikTok and Instagram may be your best bet. If you’re B2B targeting decision makers in businesses, LinkedIn may be your stomping ground.

Many businesses find it helpful to create a buyer persona; a semi-fictional character that represents the average buyer. Instead of targeting men and women aged 20-25 who earn £20K+, you’re targeting 24-year-old Jack who works in a London marketing agency. By identifying your target audience on a personal basis, you can understand their motivations and therefore see your product’s value on a deeper level.

Step 2: Create

Now you have a plan in place, it’s time to create content. It’s a good idea to have a system of planning and scheduling content to ensure you’re regularly keeping your followers up to date. This could be in the form of social software such as Sked Social which also allows you to automate scheduling content, or it can be as simple as noting which content you’re posting and when.

If possible, it’s great to have content ready to post at least a week beforehand. This ensures that your content isn’t rushed and means that your followers aren’t left in the dark if something unexpected crops up and you don’t have the time to post anything for a while.

Capturing Content

To run a successful social campaign, you don’t always need expensive equipment and high-quality cameras. If all the equipment you have is your smartphone, this is more than enough.

Capturing content will differ from business to business. Are you going to educate your audience with infographics and guides? Or are you adding a personalised edge to your socials by sharing team TikToks and announcements?

No matter what content you’re making, you need to consider lighting, angles and backdrop as a minimum. Even if you’re not posting directly about your products/services, poor quality pictures or a messy office backdrop is never a good image for your business. There’s plenty of resources available online to learn handy tips and tricks to elevate your content.

If you are wanting to invest in good quality photography equipment for your social media content, a digital camera with a 50mm lens is a reasonably-priced place to start.

Video Content

Filming videos can come with more challenges than stills. When filming content out-of-office, be sure to capture plenty of B-Roll. Even if it’s not helpful for your primary content, it’s great to have content to fall back on in the future if you’re struggling for ideas. If good audio quality is paramount to your content, you might consider using an external microphone – but it’s not essential.

Editing

Don’t forget to sharpen your video and photo content with editing. This doesn’t have to be extensive or elaborate – sometimes all you need is to add your business’ watermark to personalise your content.

Step 3: Engage

Your social media strategy doesn’t finish when you’ve posted your content – now you need to engage. Connect with customers, potential customers and other businesses to grow your network and reach. If you’re not sure where to start, then start by searching for #’s related to your industry.

Growing your business on social media can seem difficult, but by remaining consistent potential followers will soon find you. Remember: social media is an ever-changing medium, so your technique needs to constantly adapt too. Stay on top of the latest trends and learn from your peers by engaging with people in your industry on LinkedIn and watching educational webinars like our free Lunch and Learn sessions!