Social media is both a communication channel and a source of marketing opportunities for companies.

Best social media strategy consists of planning and organizing actions in order to achieve previously defined marketing and commercial objectives with the following steps.

Analyze the Current Situation

The first step before launching a social media strategy is to take stock of the situation. It is important to analyze both the company’s environment and its internal strengths and weaknesses.

Even if the Strategy is not formalized, it is quite rare that a company does not take any action on social media. First of all, it is necessary to inventory the existing accounts (Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.) without forgetting the actions of employees on social networks. Perhaps the salespeople share content about the company with their LinkedIn network?

If actions already exist, what is the current visibility of the company on social media? How big are the communities? How does social media contribute to business goals?

Moreover, it is useful to analyze the activity of its main competitors? Where are they active? What are their main messages?

Setting Goals

Like any strategy, a social media strategy is based on SMART objectives (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely defined).

On the basis of the preliminary analysis, it is, therefore, necessary to define objectives aligned with the marketing and commercial objectives of the company. For example :

• Increase web traffic from social media by 30% within 3 months
• Acquire 10 new leads per month
• Generate 3 new customers per month

These objectives will be associated with performance indicators (KPI) to evaluate the results of the actions carried out.

Define your Target Audience

The social media strategy must promote the generation of qualified leads to contribute to business objectives. The prerequisite is obviously to target the right audience.

Before starting, it is, therefore, necessary to define your target customers, for example, with the method of buyer personas. This method makes it possible to draw a composite portrait of its ideal customers:

• What is his profile?
• What are its issues?
• What information is he looking for?
• Where and how does it consume information?

This step is essential because it allows you to choose the platforms on which efforts should be focused. It also gives precise indications for constructing a discourse adapted to the profile and expectations of its targets.

Create accounts and Optimize your Profiles

Once you have identified the social media frequented by your target customers, you should create accounts accordingly and make the profiles attractive.

It must be remembered that each social media has its specificities. A company will not have the same objectives on Facebook and on Snapchat, for example. Therefore, the social media manager will also have to create profiles adapted to the platform.

Define a Publication Schedule

Social media all work differently, and followers have different expectations too. It is, therefore, inconceivable to publish the same thing at the same time on all the media.

For example, we can publish several tweets on the same day while we will only create 3 or 4 LinkedIn posts per week.

To gain rigor and efficiency, it is recommended to build an editorial schedule. This tool will allow you to have an overview of the publications and to keep the right rhythm on each medium.

Create and Publish Content

 The social media manager or the community manager creates content adapted to the specificities of each media and to the defined objectives. To engage your community and get results, you have to find the right tone and stand out from the competition.

If the content must respect the fundamentals of the platform, the tone, on the other hand, corresponds to the brand image. Just like iconography, it must remain consistent from one medium to another.

The publication of content follows the defined editorial schedule. To save time, the community manager can use a planning tool like Hootsuite or Buffer.

Assess Performance and drive Strategy

Based on the KPIs established when setting objectives, the social media manager analyzes the Performance of publications, and especially their contribution to website traffic and conversion mechanics.

On the basis of his data, he will be able to:

• test new posts or campaigns
• Define underperformance campaign 
• Refine the Strategy accordingly

To take advantage of social media Marketing, it is not enough to be present. A complete strategy must be put in place to serve the company’s objectives. This Strategy must be based on clear objectives and take into account the specificities of each medium while maintaining the consistency of the brand image.