How to Build a Successful Social Media Strategy

Social Media is king nowadays! Let’s face it – creating and implementing a social media marketing strategy has become essential today. 

Remember when marketing was just a billboard sign or a commercial on television? Well, if you’re younger than 25, chances are that the answer is not really, or even simply, no. And it makes sense! Social media has become such an important part of our day-to-day lives – it’s where we connect with others, create a community, and, well… everything else. 

In fact, research shows that we spend around 2 hours and 30 minutes on average every day using social media. So, yes, we spend a lot of time on social media. Even more so, 90% of us buy from brands we actively follow on social media. That’s how powerful it is! And if we’re not prioritizing growing our social media accounts, we might lose a large portion of our clients.

So, keep reading to learn everything you need to know about what is social media marketing (SMM) and how to build a successful social media marketing strategy.

Social media marketing (SMM) refers to using social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and so on, to promote our business, products, or services. 

If our business launches a new product and promotes it on social media – this is social media marketing. If we engage with our customers to create a community – this is social media marketing. If we create educational content to share with our followers, this is also social media marketing. 

All of these require a social media marketing strategy that helps us plan what we want and what steps we need to take to achieve the desired results. So, how do we create a successful social media plan?

Let’s find out the five steps of creating social media marketing that will put you in front of your users in no second.

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1. Set SMART Goals

Of course, setting goals is a no-brainer – but it’s such an important step. In fact, the first step to creating a successful social media plan is knowing exactly what you want to achieve. This is essential in every step of our business growth - whether it's sales, branding, or even design.

Do you want to sell your product? You need to promote your product or service. Do you want to build a community around your brand? You need to create engagement through likes, comments, and so on. Do you want to build awareness of your brand? You need to post valuable content. 

Only once you’ve defined your goals can you start creating content to achieve these objectives. As businesses at the beginning of the road, it’s easy to get overwhelmed as we want to do everything. But don’t just start posting without an actual plan. 

We recommend initially concentrating on two goals in your social media plan at the same time. You can expand your reach and focus once you get some traction and engagement. 

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2. Learn Everything About Your Target Market

Knowing who you’re talking to is the most essential rule in marketing and sales. This is why it’s important to conduct market research. 

Who are your potential followers? What do they follow on social media? What are their interests? All of these questions should help you understand what type of content they expect to see from you. Remember! We should create content based on their preferences rather than expecting them to change their needs to fit our content. 

Our audience should be a representation of our customer persona. But to establish our ideal customer, we might want to analyze the following aspects:

• Demographics (age range, country, etc)
• Preferred social media platform(s)
• Brand affinities
• Interests and pain points
• How our product helps them

You can also check out some cool social media analytics, like Hootsuite and Sprout Social. These can provide a lot of information about your followers and help you improve your strategy.

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3. Understand Your Competition

Of course, your competition is already leveraging social media. This means that you can learn everything you need to know based on, well… what they’re doing. 

So, before we can create a digital marketing strategy, conduct a competitive analysis and see what’s working and what’s not. Look at what type of content they’re posting, how much they’re posting, and everything else that will help us create a successful social media plan. This way, we can understand what’s expected from the market and implement it ourselves as well.

One competitor could focus on an Instagram strategy with informative content. Maybe another one is dominant on LinkedIn and posts regular industry updates and professional insights. This is why we recommend creating a document where you can track everything you need to know about your competitors’ social media: the active networks and what they focus on, the number of followers on each platform, the type of content, unique elements, and so on. 

Whatever it is, you can highlight their strengths and weaknesses and incorporate them into our own strategy. But make sure to add your unique element to your plan to differentiate you from your competitors. Remember! The path to success is to innovate, not imitate. 

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4. Set Up Your Social Media Accounts

Now that we have analyzed our competitors, we have an idea of where the majority of our possible customers are. So, decide what social media platform you’ll use and which one you will focus on the most. 

Some businesses mainly focus on one or two networks at once, and this is where their main communities will be. But in most cases, they will use all of their platforms to cross-promote content and maintain a consistent presence. 

As we decide on the social media networks we will focus on, it’s also important to remember that each platform works differently and caters to specific needs. For example, on Instagram, we might post high-quality educational content or meme reels, while on [X], we will post product announcements and the latest news regarding our company. So, we must also define and create the strategy for each platform. 

Once you’ve decided on the social media platforms you want to use, optimize your profile accounts (or improve your existing ones). 

Pro Tip: Use keywords related to your industry and be consistent across all platforms (content, logo, username, and so on).

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5. Create Your Social Media Content Calendar

Staying organized is the key to success! Sharing our content is essential, of course. But when we’re organized, we know exactly what’s missing, what works, and what doesn’t, allowing us to understand what we need to do to optimize our content. 

So, how do we do that? Exactly, by setting up a social media content calendar.

This calendar should include the dates and the times when we will publish our content on all channels and the time spent interacting with our audience (but don’t forget to have some spontaneous engagement). Whether it’s standard posts, videos (TikToks or Reels), re-shares, or even stories, a calendar is the perfect tool for staying in touch with our social media activities. 

Even more so, some social media calendars and scheduling tools, such as Hootsuite, also recommend the best time for us to post for each platform based on our previous impressions and engagement rate. 

This also allows us to determine what is the right content mix. If you’re just starting your accounts and unsure what to post, we recommend the rule of thirds:

• 1/3 of our content should be entertaining and educational
• 1/3 of our content should be personal interactions
• 1/3 of our content should be to promote our business and products

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Remember: The key to a successful social media strategy is to test what’s working and keep doing that! 

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Create a Successful Social Media Strategy with Traction Keys

Are you ready to take your business to new heights through ongoing collaboration? Our dream team focuses on building a successful social media strategy for your online business that can improve help your business growth. Whether you’re looking to launch your business or rebrand your existing company, we provide top-class solutions that will set you apart from your competition.

Contact us today to get a personalized quote for your business needs, and let’s start building the path to your next level of success together!