4 Essential Elements of a Social Media Marketing Strategy

Nowadays if you don't have a social media presence, you're missing out on a huge way to reach your target audience with your message, especially at the right time. In fact, "In the United States, people spend 2 hours and 3 minutes on social media each day" according to DigitalMarketing.org. That provides an incredible opportunity to make sure your brand is in the palm of your consumers' hands.

But where do you start? There are so many social media platforms and different ways to craft your message which can be pretty overwhelming. That's why it is so important to take a step back and create your social media marketing strategy.

Here are four essential elements to create your social media marketing strategy.

Set Goals

Determine what your social media marketing goals are and how they fit into your overall marketing strategy. What do you, your team, and your company want to get out of your social media channels? Are you driving leads or sales? Are you creating brand awareness? The SMART goals framework - specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely - can help you identify what your goals are and how you're going to achieve them through social media. Check out a few examples or download the template from HubSpot.

Focus on Your Audience

While it may be tempting to try to talk to everyone on social media, it's actually very important that you keep the focus on your target audience. When you hone in on your audience, figuring out what to say and when to say it becomes so much easier. You wouldn't set up a paid advertising campaign with a non-targeted audience, so why post organically on social without your target audience at the core of your content and message.

Choose the Right Platforms

With so many different options of platforms, how do you even begin to choose which to be on? It's simple actually. You don't have to be on all platforms - instead, you should choose to be on the ones where your target audience spends their time. Focus your time there, and it'll become much easier to achieve your goals.

Outline Content Pillars

This is something that many people don't do but would save them so much time in planning, creating, and sharing content. Content pillars are the themes of your content. I recommend choosing anywhere from 3-7 different content pillars that your content should focus on. Examples include educational content like blogs, lead generation content like ebook downloads or webinar signups, the list goes on. When you have content pillars in place, it's easy to choose what type of content is talked about when.

All four of these social media marketing strategy elements allow you to spend less time making content and more time providing value to your audience. Social media is a highly effective way to communicate with your customers and prospects and should be part of every marketing plan. It can feel daunting to manage all of the various social media platforms and ways to reach your audience, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Schedule your free consultation and let's chat about creating a successful social media marketing strategy.