If you’re not on social media, or only use it personally, setting up business accounts might seem daunting. That doesn’t have to be the case. Whether you’re just starting out or your business’ channels need a refresh, we outline steps to help you develop a social media strategy.
Step 1: Define your audience and establish goals
Your first step begins with defining your target audience. There are some questions to consider as you begin. What kinds of content does your audience engage with? What platforms are they on? Do you even need a Twitter account if your audience doesn’t use it? If you have a younger crowd, like Millennials or Gen Z, Instagram or TikTok could be the best platform to reach your audience. If you sell to other businesses, LinkedIn is a better choice.
Once your audience is defined, you can begin to establish goals for your social media presence. What do you hope to achieve with social media? Are you looking to spread awareness about your product or service? Do you want to educate your audience about issues in your field? Do you have events you want to promote? After setting goals, you can establish metrics to track—such as follows and engagement rate—to assess how your content performs.
Step 2: Find your voice
Now that you’ve defined your audience and set goals on how to reach them, you need to determine your tone. If your business already has an established brand voice, you can use it to determine how you will talk to your social media followers.
Remember, consistency is key to building trust. Will your social media presence be friendly and conversational? Will it be more informative and provide thought leadership to your followers? Each platform will also help dictate how relaxed or professional your voice will be. For example, Instagram tends to have a more conversational tone versus LinkedIn.
Step 3: Design how your social media will look and feel
In addition to a consistent voice, your business should also have established design elements. Social media is an extension of your brand so the colors, fonts, language, graphics, and imagery should be the same as those used in other branded pieces.
Design your profile picture and header graphics with the same elements across all platforms. Creating post templates using your fonts and colors is a helpful way to keep brand consistency in your posts. Photos of real people often receive more engagement, so keep a bank of images from photoshoots or past events to use in posts.
Step 4: Create content that resonates with your audience
Before creating content, it’s essential to understand what type your audience engages with the most so you’re maximizing return on investment. Depending on your business’ product or service, content could vary from informative how-to videos and testimonials to facts or promoting your company’s blog. Having content buckets—or topics to cover each month— and a calendar of when you will post is helpful.
Another decision when creating content is what the format of the post will be. From static images to videos to polls, there are a variety of formats. Again, understanding what your followers interact with the most is important for success.
It’s also worthing noting that the average attention span on social media is 8.25 seconds. Creating short-form video content is key in getting your message across quickly while making an impact.
Step 5: Interact with your audience
You are not done on social media when you’ve created and posted content. Interacting with your audience is also important. Responding to messages and comments, liking other users’ posts and re-sharing not only helps you connect with your audience, but it also increases the chance of new followers finding your accounts.
An account that sits stagnant and does not engage can be seen as lacking in personality and customer service.
Step 6: Review social media metrics
Once you have defined your audience, created posts, and published content regularly for more than a month, analyze how your efforts have performed. Are followers engaging with your video content more than any other type? Are how-to posts receiving more shares than others? This information can be helpful for you when developing future posts. Spend more time creating the types of posts your followers want to see so they keep coming back, and so more people find your accounts by interacting with your content
From copywriting and design to strategy and account management—a lot of work goes into social media. However, the effort is worth it to reach new audiences and attain new leads.
ddm’s design and content experts work in the world of social media daily. If you need help or are ready to establish your online presence, give us a call.