Social media is gradually becoming the platform where most people get to interface with businesses or brands first. Research has also shown that most consumers or customers use a particular business service or patronize a business they most likely came across online through a social media platform.

Additionally, we can infer this from the following Digital 2022 Global Overview Report:

• Nearly 60% of the world’s population—4.6 billion individuals—are engaged social media users.
• 2.27 hours are typically spent daily on social media.
• The number of TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram users has increased in 2022.
• Every month, people use 7.5 platforms on average.

Therefore, it is important that businesses or brands put much thought into their social media marketing strategy and not just do it haphazardly. This is not much of a difficult task as long as you follow and apply the appropriate social media marketing guidelines.

In this guide, you will discover how you can plan your social media marketing strategy for your business or brand. It will also help you know when and how to put your business out there so that you gain more reach and generate sales.

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing basically involves putting your business online using social media platforms, either to increase sales or reach. These social media sites include LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, and Facebook. Social media marketing is when your company releases a new product and you decide to launch it on social media.

It is also social media marketing if you produce content that illustrates the principles and history of your business. It is also social media marketing when you reward your clients for referring someone to your business.

There’s no need for a complicated plan of action. You only need to stick to a straightforward strategy with clear objectives and useful metrics in mind. This will enable you to know which platform to channel your content strength to and what timing is perfect for posting.

How to develop your social media marketing strategy

Asking yourself the 5 Ws and answering genuinely is considered one of the simplest approaches to developing your business’s social media marketing strategy:

• What motivates your desire to use social media?
• Whom are you trying to reach?
• What will you be sharing?
• What platform do you want to use?
• What time will you post your content?

Below are some strategies you can employ while creating your business social media marketing strategy and they are answers to most of the 5 Ws mentioned above.

1. Your goals: Your goals will largely inform your social media marketing strategy, therefore, you should identify your goals and ensure they are SMART goals, ie. they should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. Your chances of reaching your goals—and, more significantly, knowing that you have—increase with how SMART they are. Make your social media marketing approach straightforward rather than adding too many goals that can divert your attention. Pick one or two of these goals to achieve per time and get your social media team to rally your team around them and achieve them.
2. Your audience: Decide who your target market is. Then start by describing the essential demographics of the audience you’re aiming to attract, such as their age, gender, employment, income, hobbies and interests, etc., if you haven’t previously defined and recorded your buyer personas. There is so much data on these social media platforms that can help you discover these. Identifying your target market enables you to develop targeted advertising that meets the unique demands of your ideal customer.
3. Your platforms: When developing your brand’s social media strategy, another important factor to think about is which social media sites you want your company to use. Keep in mind that not every social media network is necessary for your brand or business. Given that the most used platforms known as the Big Four — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn — frequently appear on the first page of Google search results when consumers search for your business, it would be beneficial to at least have a comprehensive profile on each of them. Find out which of these platforms your audience uses the most. This will largely help inform your choice.
4. Your competitors: An essential component of any social marketing approach is competitor analysis. It aids in your understanding of what your competitors are doing in the social sphere, including the platforms they employ and the campaigns they are running. Additionally, you may view their messaging, content, and posting frequency. By learning how they interact with clients and how well that interaction goes, you can either copy them, draw insights from them, or go in a completely different path to draw in customers.

The approach you use for your social media strategy is your passing game. However, you need to be adaptable, keep your finger on the social media scene’s pulse, and strive to always develop in a field like social media where things practically change every day thanks to algorithm upgrades and audiences that are continuously looking forward to something new.

Above all, keep in mind the following three principles: be genuine, look for opportunities to add value, and when in doubt, guess, test, measure, and learn.