Est. Read Time: 5 min
If you are managing your social media and you’re finding you don’t get much engagement in the way of likes, comments, shares, and saves.
When it comes to making content, you do it whenever you can and you post what you think your audience wants to see.
You’re starting to feel frustrated because it feels like social media is becoming a burden and a huge waste of time!
I get that! I have definitely felt that way with my content and with client’s content. I know I am creating great content, but some of it just isn’t for ‘that’ particular audience.
Creating great content your audience finds valuable takes some trial and error. You need to be ready to commit to consistency!
[Read my blog post: How Often Should I Be Posting on My Social Media? To learn more about how often you should be posting.]
But you know what helped me create content that didn’t make me feel like I was wasting my time? I created a Social Media Strategy.
Now before you start to feel overwhelmed, let me first define social media strategy. And then I will give you four tips to help you create a social media strategy!
What is a Social Media Strategy?
Think of your social media strategy as your road map that is going to take you to your final destination.
Your final destination being your overall goal(s) with social media.
It answers the what, when, how, and why for all the content you post. Every piece of the strategy must support the desired outcome.
To create a strategy you need to know who your audience is, what they are looking for, how their needs align with your goals, and ultimately how you will attract them with an offer that gets them to work with you.
Here are a few questions to help you begin strategizing before you dive into my four tips!
- How do you want your brand to be perceived?
- What kind of content will you share?
- What are the goals, or results you want to achieve?
1. Define your target audience
First things first, you must define your target audience.
Your target audience is crucial to your success. Without it, your marketing efforts may not be as successful because you could be targeting too many people or people who aren’t your ideal audience members.
Here at Razzle, we are huge advocates for time-saving, and taking a few minutes to clarify who it is that you are wanting to reach – will save you TONS of time down the road, while providing you with a clear focus on who you are serving.
So, how do you narrow down the audience you want to target? You will want to start on your current audience and check your Facebook and Instagram insights to see which demographics you are reaching the most.
Then figuring out what content your audience finds the most valuable will take a bit of trial and error, and of course some research. But if you stay consistent with checking on your social media insights to see who your posts are reaching and what content they are engaging with the most you can start to see your efforts paying off.
Now let’s go deeper and think about your audience for another moment.
Identity who is your business benefiting
Don’t think features, think benefits.
For example, features of a home are: modern kitchen, updated bathroom, office space. The benefits of the home are: space to cook with your spouse in the kitchen, room in the bathroom for all the kids to get ready for bed, the ability to work from home in a separate space.
^^See how both of those evoke different feelings.
Once you are clear on the benefits of your product/service you can have a clearer picture of which demographic will benefit the most.
You want your target audience to have a reason to buy from you.
So let’s say you are selling children’s toys, you are most likely targeting families. Thus, you would want to produce valuable content for a family-orientated audience.
Once you know who it is you are targeting, who will benefit from your business, and the people who are interested in using your product/services, then you are on the right track to creating your social media strategy that is fit for your business.
2. Select the right social media channel for your target audience
Once you know who your people are, you’ll know which social media they are most active on. If you’re not sure which demographics are on which platform, you just need to Google ‘Social Media Platform Demographics.
And make sure you know your audience’s interests, because that could affect which platforms they are on too.
Our suggestion is that you pick one social media channel you know your audience is on and put all your effort in starting out there. When you try to create content for all the platforms at once it can be quite overwhelming.
You’ll start producing content with little to no value and become more and more inconsistent until you stop posting completely.
Help set yourself up for success by starting with one and mastering it. Then start exploring more platforms!
3. Set Objectives
Setting goals for your social media strategy is crucial to the success of your online marketing efforts. Although we absolutely love goal setting, we realize this isn’t everyone’s favourite thing.
But….Your intention gives you direction friend!
That’s why we want to highly encourage you take some time to write out a few objectives you wish to achieve in your social media journey.
And I know, I know, we all want to shoot for the stars. If you are an entrepreneur such as the Razzle Team, we understand that you have big goals and even bigger dreams. You want your efforts and time to produce something valuable.
Bare with me though, friend. Stepping stones are not to be overlooked during this portion.
This is why I recommend you make three short-term goals and two long-term goals. This way you won’t feel too overwhelmed if you haven’t reached those big goals of yours.
Remember, consistency is key.
And your stepping stones will bring you that much closer to the big picture you have envisioned. Here are a few examples of some objectives:
Short-term Objectives:
- Increase post engagement by 10% by end of month
- Post 3-5 days a week
- Aim for three comments per post
Long-term Objectives:
- Reach 150 followers from 0 by December 2022
- Increase website traffic by 30% by December 2022
These are just some quick examples I whipped up.
You will want to put some thinking into your own social media objectives such as why you want to be online, what you hope to get from being online, and where you are going with this. If you need additional help, we urge you to refer to S.M.A.R.T goals which means: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely.
4. Build Your Content Calendar!
I think this is the most exciting and important part of your social media journey that helps you stay on track!
The Razzle Team loooooooves our quarterly content calendar template –it makes life on social media so much easier.
We plan out one whole month of content which is usually 3-5 posts a week for us, but you do what is achievable for you.
Consistency is key but we don’t want you to have social media burnout – so just stick with what you can do with the time you have now and work your way up.
It is so great to be able to lay out your entire month ahead of time. We like to brainstorm a list of content ideas prior and then lay it out in the calendar.
From there, we write up captions from those content ideas as well as creating our matching canvas graphics, memes, or whatever creatives you wish to upload!
Then you just have to schedule it to your social media platform of your choosing.
After that, use your social media insights will provide you with information on what is working and what is not.
AND THAT IS IT!
We like to check in on our posts frequently to monitor the engagement, but other than that your month is set. All you have to do is keep up with this process and you’ll be dazzling your audience AND staying consistent.
Build yourself a content calendar or use our template! Just CLICK HERE and follow the instructions to download it to your Google Drive.
Last Note…
We are so excited for you now to get started on your social media strategy! You are on the right track to a successful online presence.
If this still seems like too much work for you but you really want to be doing some social media marketing for your business, do not worry because we provide Done For You services where you are hands-off, and we are hands-on.
We help you by creating a consistent and successful social media presence. Email us now if you are interested in getting started and tell us how we can help you!
Now hopefully your week brings you plenty of success and happiness.
-Madisen & Jordan
