5 ways to build a successful social media strategy for your business

Creating an effective social media strategy is no easy task, but it can make a huge difference in improving your brand awareness and gaining loyal customers.

Below are 5 basic steps to get started on building your own successful social media strategy:

##### 1. Identify and set goals What is your goal? What are you looking to achieve?

Don’t know where to start? It helps to figure out what your brand values are and research your audience to figure out how and what you want to communicate to them.

The more specific your goals are, the better you will be at producing and tailoring content that meets your goals.

Here are a few examples of marketing goals: - Increase brand awareness - Improve sales / lead generation - Increase community engagement - Grow my brand’s audience - Increase website traffic

##### 2. Plan a social media audit

After finding your goals, it’s time to do a social media content audit on the content you currently have.

A good place to start: - Which posts did well? - Which posts did not do well ? - Why did they perform well or not? - What did you post on each platform? - Which platform was most successful? - Do you have a consistent brand voice? - What type of followers are engaging with your content?

A content audit will help you see what’s working well with quantitative data. Look at the language and tone you used in your post. You may find that some underperforming content may have not aligned with your brand voice or was irrelevant to your business, thus decreasing engagement. Irrelevant posts, besides bad customer service, is the second biggest reason followers unfollow brands on social media.

Promotional or organic posts should always be consistent, on-brand, and authentic. Stick with your brand’s unique voice and style because that is the reason your audience began following you in the first place.

##### 3. Build a content calendar for the month

A content calendar is a great way to organize and visualize your big-picture approach and strategy so that it can be easier to execute.

When planning content, you can also repurpose your content and schedule it across different social media platforms to get the most value out of it.


[Image Source](https://www.hebergementwebs.com/image/01/014ff9b381d9007f2376e3a549043a8e.png/the-best-content-calendar-template-2020-get-organized-all-year-round-13.png )

##### 4. Promote and distribute your content effectively

This focuses on how you can actively distribute your content so that as many people as possible see it. Having an established content distribution strategy may lead to your posts being more widely shared.

There are many social media platforms out there that allow you to post campaigns and distribute content all from one place. Our Otis app has the ability to create and publish cross-channel ad campaigns so that you don’t waste time or money posting content individually on each platform.

A few tactics for blogging are including the share buttons on your posts (just like this article has a share button at the top) so your audience can distribute your content to their followers.

Another tactic to encourage your audience to engage with your content is to ask questions and encourage them to share their answers in the comments section. Having people share your content is amazing social proof for your company.

It is also important to respond to comments or reposting people who shared your content. The active connection with the followers is very important in building brand trust and loyalty.

Other ways to maximize your reach on platforms like Twitter and Instagram is to utilize hashtags. Hashtags are a way for people who don’t follow you, to find your content. On LinkedIn and Facebook, you can join groups related to your industry and share relevant content.

##### 5. Measure, analyzing, and understand your results

Keeping detailed results will help you fix and optimize your strategy over time by analyzing your content and performance every month to keep track of your progress. Look at how each content performed and how that content contributed to your overall goal.

Here are some important social media metrics for your business to measure:

- Awareness – Number of times people saw your content as told by impressions and reach - Impressions – Used to quantify the number of digital views or engagements of a piece of content, usually an advertisement, digital post, or a web page. - Clicks – Number of times users have clicked on a digital advertisement - Engagement – Number of reactions, comments, clicks and shares your content gets - Return on Investment (ROI) – Conversions and referrals from external sources - Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) – Similar to ROI, used to evaluate the effectiveness of a marketing campaign. - Cost Per Click (CPC) – The cost advertisers pay based on the number of times visitors click on a display ad attached to their sites. - Click Through Rate (CTR) – The ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view the advertisement. - Conversions – Getting someone to respond to your call-to-action (ex. buying your product or service)

There are many tools and platforms that can measure data for you for further analysis. For example, our Otis app does a great job of showing a clear snapshot of your campaign performance with all the important metrics. We make it very simple and easy to track so that our clients have an easy time digesting their results.


In conclusion, the way to stand out is to identify your goals, create relevant and valuable content that align with those goals, utilizing the right platform to get your message across, and finding a way to measure and analyze your results.

[Information Source](https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-content-strategy/)