A social media strategy is a plan for how a brand will use social media platforms to achieve its marketing and business goals. For a young brand, a social media strategy can be an effective way to build awareness and engagement with potential customers.
At SYNC, we help a lot of brands build their social media footprint because there are still many brands out there that don’t have the time or hours to manage their social media.
There are several steps that a young brand can take to create a social media strategy:
Define the goals and objectives of your social media strategy
The first step in creating a social media strategy is to define the brand’s goals and objectives for using social media. This could include goals such as increasing brand awareness, generating leads, or driving traffic to the brand’s website. Defining specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals can help the brand focus its efforts and track its progress.
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Identify your core target audience(s)
Identifying the target audience is an important step in creating a social media strategy, as it helps the brand understand who they are trying to reach and engage with on social media. The target audience could include demographics such as age, gender, location, and interests, as well as other factors that may be relevant to the brand.
For example, a fashion brand targeting young, urban women might identify its target audience as females between the ages of 18 and 35 who live in major cities and have an interest in fashion and style. A fitness brand targeting busy professionals might identify its target audience as males and females between the ages of 25 and 45 who work full-time and are interested in health and wellness.
Identifying the target audience can help the brand create content and messaging that is more likely to resonate with potential customers. For example, if the brand knows that its target audience is interested in fashion and style, it can create content that showcases the brand’s latest collections and trends, or offers tips and advice on fashion and styling. If the target audience is interested in health and wellness, the brand can create content that showcases its products or services or provides tips and advice on healthy living.
In addition to creating relevant content, identifying the target audience can also help the brand select the social media platforms that are most likely to reach and engage with potential customers. For example, if the brand’s target audience is young, urban women, it may choose to focus its efforts on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest, where this audience is most active. If the target audience is busy professionals, the brand may choose to focus on LinkedIn, where this audience is more likely to be found.
Overall, identifying the target audience is an important step in creating a social media strategy, as it helps the brand understand who they are trying to reach and engage with, and create content and messaging that is more likely to resonate with potential customers.
Select social media platforms
Once the brand’s goals and target audience have been defined, the next step is to select the social media platforms that are most relevant to the brand. This could include platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, WeChat, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, or others, depending on the brand’s goals and target audience. It is important to select platforms that are widely used by the target audience and that align with the brand’s goals.
In Singapore, Instagram still rules, but TikTok and LinkedIn are catching up quickly and other platforms like Facebook are staying relevant, but just barely. In Malaysia though, our data and research show that Facebook is still very active and is still effective for brands.
Develop a detailed content plan
The next step is to develop a content plan that outlines the types of content the brand will share on social media, as well as how often it will be shared. This could include a mix of organic and paid content, such as blog posts, videos, images, promotions, or other types of content that are relevant to the brand’s target audience. The content plan should be designed to engage and build relationships with potential customers and should be aligned with the brand’s goals and target audience.
A content plan is a document that outlines the types of content that a brand will share on social media, as well as how often it will be shared. The key components are:
- The brand’s goals, target audience
- types of content
- frequency of sharing
A content plan can help a brand organize and prioritize its content creation efforts, and ensure that it is consistently sharing relevant and engaging content on social media. This can help the brand achieve its goals and connect with potential customers on social media.
READ MORE: Here’s a short case study on how we grew Singlit’s social media presence
Monitor and measure the performance of your social media strategy
Monitoring and measuring the performance of a brand’s social media strategy is an important step in ensuring that the strategy is effective and aligned with the brand’s goals. There are several key metrics that a brand can track to monitor and measure its performance on social media, such as:
- Engagement: Engagement refers to the level of interaction that a brand’s posts receive from its followers on social media. This could include likes, comments, shares, or other types of engagement, such as clicks or conversions. Monitoring engagement can help the brand understand how well its content is resonating with its followers, and identify which types of content are most effective at driving engagement.
- Followers: The number of followers that a brand has on social media is a key metric that can be used to track the brand’s growth and reach on the platforms. Monitoring the number of followers can help the brand understand how well its content and messaging are resonating with potential customers, and identify any trends or patterns in the growth of its followers.
- Reach: Reach refers to the number of people who see a brand’s posts on social media. This can be a useful metric for understanding the brand’s overall visibility on the platforms, and identifying which types of content are most effective at reaching a wider audience.
- Conversions: Conversions refer to the number of people who take the desired action, such as visiting the brand’s website, subscribing to a newsletter, or making a purchase, as a result of seeing the brand’s content on social media. Monitoring conversions can help the brand understand the effectiveness of its social media efforts in driving business results, such as generating leads or increasing sales.
These are by no means comprehensive, but as a young brand, these should be sufficient to understand how well your social media strategy is working. By monitoring and measuring these key metrics, a brand can track its performance on social media and identify areas for improvement. This can help the brand refine its strategy and make more informed decisions about how to optimize its social media efforts.
By following these steps, a young brand can create a social media strategy that can help it build awareness and engagement with potential customers on social media. This can be an effective way to grow the brand and achieve its marketing and business goals.
If you would like to find out how to do that or want to work with us on this, drop us an email at hello(@)syncpr.co and one of our consultants will be in touch soon.