Having a well-defined strategy is key in social media marketing. Without it, you may be posting on different platforms just to build content without any real purpose. It will be hard to achieve results if you do not have clear goals for what you want to accomplish. When creating a social media marketing strategy, there a few questions you can ask yourself:

• Why do you want to be on social media?
• Who is your target audience?
• What are you going to share?
• Where are you going to share?
• When are you going to share?

You can consider these questions for each platform and allow it to lead to your overall social media marketing strategy.

Why Do You Want to Be On Social Media?

The reason you want to be on social media leads to your social media goals. There are many goals you can have, whether it be increasing brand awareness, driving traffic to your website, generating new leads, boosting brand engagement… the list continues. Take on a handful of goals yourself, or divide goals among your team.

Who Is Your Target Audience?

Identifying your target audience will help you answer the next few questions about what, where, and when you are going to share content on social media. Build marketing personas for your audience by first figuring out who they are. This may include their job title, age, gender, salary, location, etc. Find out what your audience is interested in, such as entertainment or information. Then get an idea of their ideal platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter? Think about when and why your audience typically looks for your content as well as how they consume it, such as reading social media posts or watching videos.

What Are You Going to Share?

Think about the theme of each of your social media platforms. Some brands may share photos from their customers and photos of their products. Others may share editorial content and high-quality photos. You can have more than one theme, as it gives you space to share a range of content to keep your audience engaged. Take a look back at your marketing personas and consider what goals and challenges your target audience may have, as well as how you can help solve them.

Where Are You Going to Share?

Determine on which social media platforms you would like to share your content. Keep in mind that you do not have to be on every platform available; being on fewer gives you a better focus and more time to create better content. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are usually the top four websites that will show on the first page of Google search results. Consider your target audience again here: which platforms are they most active on?

When Are You Going to Share?

There is really no specific prime-time for posting; it all depends on your specific audience. For example, sports fans are likely on social media just before, during, or after a sporting event to find content relative to the event. People who love to travel may be on social media the most during the weekends when they have time to plan for their next trip. Therefore, there is no certain time that can be pin-pointed for posting, so focus on the general behavior patterns of your target audience.

Viamark Advertising

Now that you have developed your social media marketing strategy, you can begin planning how to get to where you’re headed. Fill out your social media profiles, find a voice and tone, and overall, look at the big picture. Contact Viamark Advertising for help in setting up, planning, and managing your social media and networking platforms to fit your unique needs.