Social media marketing is an important part of a strategy to do well. Without a plan, you will lose a golden opportunity to generate leads and connect with your future customers. Without understanding what your goals are and who your target audience is and what they want, getting results on social media can be difficult.

If you want to develop your brand through social media or become a social media marketer, you need to build a social media marketing strategy. A right approach will help you to make your brand presence online. There is a way to do this, and it should be noted that there are many crossovers in the social media marketing strategy and social media marketing plan.

Before discussing the strategy have a look at 5W’s of Social Media Marketing Strategy as the easiest way to create your social media marketing strategy is to ask yourself 5W’s.

5W’s of Social Media Marketing Strategy

The easiest way to create your social media marketing strategy is to ask yourself 5W’s:

1. Why would your business want to be on social media?
2. Who is your target group?
3. What are you going to post?
4. Where are you going to share your content?

When are you sharing your content?

1. Why would Your Business Want to be on Social Media?

The answer to this question must be clear in your mind. It’s about your social media objectives. Are you on social media to encourage your legacy? For directing traffic to your website? Or serve your customers?

In general, there are 9 Social Media Goals which you may have:

1. Increase brand awareness
2. Drive traffic to your website
3. Create new leads
4. Increase revenue (by signing or increasing sales)
5. Increase brand engagement
6. Build a community around your business
7. Provide social customer service
8. Increase references in magazines
9. Listen to the conversation about your brand

You may have more than one social media goal, and that’s fine. 

Generally, if you don’t have a small team it’s best to focus on specific goals where different individuals or sets of individuals can take on different purposes.

2. Who is your Target Audience?

Once you identify your objective to be on social media, the next thing is your target audience. Understanding your target audience can help you more easily answer the following questions: what, where, and when, i.e., what type of content you should publish? Which social media platform is most suitable for your business, at what time you should post your content so that it will reach most of your target audience etc.

Identify your Target Audience to answer these questions:
.

1. What interests your Target Audience?
2. Where do they usually hang out online?
3. When do they see the type of content you offer?
4. How do they consume content?

You probably don’t need to begin from scratch. If your organization has been running for a while, you already have a good grasp of your target audience. Whatever it takes to write it down, you can share it with a team or use it for your future reference.

3. What are you going to share?

As you look at this question, you may be thinking about the types of content you want to post. For example, do you desire to post videos or pictures?

Stop for a moment, though!

We’re discussing your social media marketing strategy here, so take a step back and expect at a higher level. Instead of the type of content to be shared, “theme” might be the right word. It’s great to have a variety of themes to keep your audience engaged without interruption.

This is where a better understanding of your target audience can help. Look at your marketing personality

and examine the following questions:

1. What goals and challenges does your target audience have?
2. How can you help to solve those challenges?

4. Where are you going to share?

The next step is determining where you desire to share your content. In other words, what social media platforms do your brand want to have?

Before we go any further, acknowledge that your brand doesn’t have to be on every social media platform. We have already made that mistake. Being on lower platforms gives you more focus and better time to create better content. 

Your presence on social media depends upon your target audience, so try to choose the social media platform which your target audience uses the most.

5. When are you sharing?

When you want to share your content, the last major part of your strategy makes sense. You may run into research for the best time to post.

Stop it…

Let’s take a step back and revisit it from a higher level. Before deciding on the day of the week and the time you want to post, consider the behaviour of your target audience.

Do they generally use social networks to search for the type of content you share?

So for this step, focus on the regular behaviour patterns of your target group. When you create your social media marketing strategy, you can experiment and find the best time for your brand.

How will you place the Strategy?

There you have it – your social media marketing strategy!

But that is not the end of it. As mentioned above, the strategy you lead is one; You have a plan on how to get there. You have decided where to go; Now you need the steps of the strategy. How do you fill in your social media profile? What should be your voice and tone? Which posts (i.e., image, link, video, etc.) should you use?

Here is a 30-day social media marketing plan, one can use to achieve their strategies.

Also See This: Building Brand Authority for your Business