How to create a social media strategy for your new business

First, you need to understand what a strategy is. It should define the main aim of your social media presence. There is an opportunity to leverage social platforms as your social media connects your brand to your target audience and allows you to achieve your brands objectives and goals.

1. set your business goals

Before anything, you need to understand what your business goals and objectives are. Without this, it becomes hard to position your brand and reach your target audience. You can drive traffic, increase brand awareness and generate more sales through your social media, so it becomes much easier to come up with a strategy once you decide what you want to achieve. Make sure your objectives are SMART ((specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) so you can measure the results and track your progress.

2. Define your target audience.

Who are the people that you want to target? this is a crucial step to ensure you are reaching the right people who would be interested in your brand. This also determines your how you setup your strategy as your content will need to be tailored to your target audience. There are many factors that can define your target audience, such as demographics, location, interest and psychographics. You should also study where your audience are most active on which will help you decide which social media platform to focus on the most.

3. Carry out a competitor analysis

A thorough analysis of your competitors can help you understand what other businesses similar to yours are doing. You can also learn from their mistakes and build your social media strategy accordingly. However, make sure you do not steal their ideas or strategy! You can always adapt their strategy to create your own. It's a good idea to follow your competitors on social media to have sight of their activity and performance then you can modify your own offerings according to suit your target audience.

4. Build a content strategy

Without a strong content, it becomes very difficult to create a strategy that works for your brand. A variety of engaging content, such as videos, images and text can help you strengthen your social media presence and reach your target market. It is also important to understand the best times and the right frequency to post to ensure you have high engagement.

Visual content is very powerful, is can get people's attention far better than text. That's not to say that textual content isn't important, but you should be posting visual content on social media to grab the attention of your followers. Find out what type of content works best for your social platform, and use that to increase your engagement.

5. Measure your progress

Within your strategy, this is one of the most important steps. Regular monitoring of your performance will help you understand what works best and what doesn't. It will strengthen your strategy and formulate effective ideas to reach your target audience. Ensure you capture performance metrics such as reach, engagement and conversion rates. You must decide on a few key performance indicators (KPIs) that are the most relevant to your social media goals. By tracking your KPIs, you can easily follow the progress of your campaigns. Based on your findings, you can determine which of your posts are performing the best. You can then run a paid promotion for these posts and increase your brand's reach manifold.