Guest Blog - 6 Must Read Articles that will Shape Your Social Media Strategy

Guest blog from Alex Platt of Swift Virtual Assistant, speaker at our March 2016 event on Social Media Scheduling (for further event info, click here).

So, what exactly is a Social Media Strategy?

Well to put it simply, a social media strategy is the plan for how you are going to use social media in your business.

Work through these questions and you will have an outline that will help support your actions throughout your social media platforms and make it more efficient. Without a plan it’s easy to become overwhelmed and confused because you’re not sure what you’re meant to be achieving!

So without further ado, here are the 6 questions you need to ask yourself (along with supporting articles to explain further) that will shape your strategy:

1. What are you doing right now with your social media?

   How much time do you use it, how much time do you HAVE to use it? Which platforms do you have accounts on already? Do you need all of them? If not, would it be best to delete the account, rather than have one that doesn’t show you in a good light? Should you do a bit of a spring clean?

   Follow this quick audit guide: The 15 Minute Social Media Audit Everyone Can Do.

2. What are your goals when using social media?

   What are you trying to do by using social media? Are you trying to sell more products, establish expertise or just create an awareness of your business?

   This blog post has a video that explains what exactly your goals should be: How to Choose Strategic Goals for your Social Media Strategy.

3. Where do your ideal clients hang out?

   Which social media platforms are they on now? There’s no point using all your time to market to no one…

   You want data of where they hang out? Check this out: How Marketers Should Choose Social Networks (Infographic)

4. What are your competitors doing?

   Really, you should perform a competitor analysis. Not just to spy (although it is useful to see exactly what they are doing), but also to see what they are NOT doing and you can fill that gap. What is their engagement like? What do they post that sparks it off? Which posts work the best? How often do they post?

   This blog goes through every social media platform and what you should be looking at:  How to Easily Analyse the Social Activities of your Competitors.

5. How are you going to use social media?

   Are you going to use a scheduling platform and post in advance? Are you going to plan your content – do you need to set up a spreadsheet (see my freebie if you’d like one now!)? Where will you find your content? What is the content you will post? Will you mix real time posting with scheduled posts? When will you interact in person?

   These social media experts give their best tools: 13 Tools to Simplify Your Social Media Marketing.

   And the question that everyone wants to know is – How many times will you post and at what times? Ta Dah: The Social Media Frequency Guide: How Often to Post to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and More.

6. How are you going to measure your results?

   You should set up a spreadsheet to measure your results. You will only see the improvement if you are tracking it. I could go into a whole lotta detail about analytics and how to track them and will in another blog later.

   For now here is a detailed list of all the metrics you could be monitoring – don’t forget to look at your goals and work out which metrics will define them first – you don’t need all 61!: 61 Key Social Media Metrics, Defined. 

Once you’ve put all that together, hey presto you have yourself a social media strategy. Now you need to go and action it!

Let me know if there is anything else you think you should know and I will look for an article I have saved that will help you!

(If this still seems too much bother – contact me and we can book a Social Media Strategy session where I will help you brainstorm through these questions with you and then send you a written plan from all the notes from the session that you can take forwards.)

Alex Platt, Swift Virtual Assistant

To see more of the business support blogs by Swift VA, click here