Building a Social Media Marketing Strategy in 2024

A strong social media marketing strategy is an essential part of any marketing team that plans to use social media to drive conversions and boost traffic. 

However, finding out where to start can be confounding — there are many best practices to consider in the planning, implementation and measurement phases. Understanding which steps provide the most impact for your business is important. 

In this blog, we provide more information on social media strategy and steps to take to create your own, including: 

• What is social media marketing?
• What is a social media strategy? 
• 10 steps to create a successful social media marketing strategy.

What Is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is the art of leveraging various social media channels and platforms to promote and market your brand, product or service. 

It's all about creating social media campaigns and an overall digital presence that resonates with audiences, sparks conversations and drives conversions. A well-crafted social media strategy can open a lot of doors for brands, including increased brand awareness, building a loyal community of fans, driving web traffic and even boosting sales.

What Is a Social Media Strategy?

A social media strategy is a blueprint for your brand to follow across social channels. It should outline your brand’s goals, philosophy and tactics that you will employ on each channel. 

No two channels are the same, so it is important to outline your approach to each and how they differ — many brands take a cheekier approach to TikTok than Instagram, for example. These tactics should also ultimately align with your business objectives.

At some point, you should outline your key performance indicators (KPIs). These are the metrics that you will use to measure your progress. Additionally, brands with a social media marketing budget should strategize how that budget should be used, taking into account influencers, ad spend and the costs of content creation.

10 Steps for Creating a Successful Social Media Marketing Strategy

While creating a successful social media marketing strategy isn’t a one-size-fits-all, there are a few standard steps that most social teams should follow to maximize their chance of success. 

Here are ten steps to create a social media strategy. 

1. Set S.M.A.R.T Goals and Track KPIs That Matter 

S.M.A.R.T goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely. In the context of your business objectives, you should have clear goals that guide your social media activities and help you figure out what you should be doing when, and how to optimize your strategy to perform even better.

2. Identity and Understand Who Your Audience Is

Social media is far-reaching and it is easy for brands to get lost in the ocean of content without a targeted strategy for reaching their desired audience. You need to start by creating content that resonates with the social media demographics that pertain to your brand. Figure out what they’re interested in so you can better tailor your content to their interests, which will earn you better engagement and more conversions.

3. Learn About Your Competitors 

You can learn a lot from what your competitors are doing well and also not-so-well. Conduct a competitive analysis to understand who your competitors are and what you can learn from their social strategies. This can help you identify opportunities and gaps in your own strategy, which will help you beat the competition. Also, tap into social listening to understand what your audience thinks about your competitors, which can help you identify opportunities to position your strengths.

 4. Audit Your Social Media

It never hurts to take a step back and evaluate your current social media presence. What's working? What's not? Who's interacting with your content and are you reaching the right audience? How do you stack up against your competitors? An audit can help you identify gaps in your strategy and opportunities for improvement. To learn more about identifying gaps in your strategy, check out our guide on how to become verified on Instagram, which will help you optimize your profile to perfection.

5. Optimize Your Profiles

Optimizing your cross-channel strategy includes setting up new accounts (like a Threads account), ensuring your bio is clear and compelling, using the right link-in-bio to help guide conversions and using relevant keywords to improve your visibility. Remember, SEO and social media do not exist in isolation.

6. Let Industry leaders Ignite Your Creativity 

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. There are already brands doing incredibly well on social media and you will benefit from looking to them for inspiration. Keep an eye on social media trends, case studies, popular social media awards and their winners plus your favorite brands. This can help spark ideas and shape your own social media marketing strategy.

7. Create Content Your Audience Will Love

Content is the heart of social media marketing. Create content that not only resonates with your audience but also encourages them to engage, share and buy your product or service. Remember, it's not just about what you want to say, but what your audience wants to hear, and audiences are currently looking for entertaining, fun and humorous content.

8. Create a Social Media Content Calendar 

There are many social media channels, and with current industry shifts brands are adding even more channels to their lineup. A social media content calendar will help you make sense of it all. A calendar can help you plan, organize and schedule your social media posts effectively. It ensures you have a steady stream of content and that your posts align with key dates and events. And you don’t need a spreadsheet to do it, as many social media platforms incorporate content calendars directly in their schedulers to make it quick and intuitive for you.

9. Engage With Your Audience and Build Community 

Do not underestimate the power of building a community on social media. Engage with your audience by responding to comments, messages and mentions promptly to help build a sense of connection and loyalty. Encourage user-generated content (UGC) and build positive relationships with influencers to let your happy customers do the speaking for you. We’ve written about all of the creative ways to build social media community to help you get started.

10. Monitor Performance and Adjust Where Needed

Regularly monitor and report on your social media performance. These social analytics will help you understand what's working, what's not and how to improve over time. Remember, a successful social media marketing strategy is not set in stone. It's flexible and evolves with your brand, audience and industry trends. And the industry changes very quickly.

Strive for Continuous Improvement

In the fast-paced world of social media, staying on top of trends, the latest platform shifts and algorithm changes is crucial. Don't be afraid to experiment, learn and adapt. Always strive to refine and improve your efforts.

Social media marketing is a journey of constant experimentation. But with the right strategy in place, you will have a strong foundation for navigating the social landscape with confidence and achieving your business objectives. 

Dash Hudson is here to help you every step of the way, whether it’s using Scheduler to plan and publish social media content, diving into Competitive Insights to figure out how to improve your content, or even pulling reports from Dashboards in a few clicks to share with company stakeholders. The right social media tool will help you execute your strategy with finesse.

FAQs

What are the strategies of social media marketing?

Social media marketing strategies encompass a range of tactics designed to achieve specific business objectives. These include:

• Setting S.M.A.R.T goals
• Understanding your audience
• Conducting a competitive analysis
• Auditing your social media presence
• Optimizing your profiles
• Seeking inspiration from industry leaders
• Creating engaging content
• Planning with a content calendar
• Engaging with your audience
• Monitoring and adjusting your strategy based on performance.

What’s an example of a social media marketing strategy?

An example of a social media marketing strategy could be a brand that uses Instagram to increase its brand awareness. They set S.M.A.R.T goals to increase their followers by 15% in six months. They identify their m interested in sustainable fashion, create content that resonates with this group, engage with their audience by responding to comments and messages and regularly monitor their engagement rates to see if the content is resonating, and then checking follower growth to see if the goal is on track.

How has social media changed marketing strategies?

Social media has revolutionized marketing strategies by providing brands with a medium to interact directly with their customers. It has shifted the focus from traditional advertising to creating conversations and building online communities. It has also made it easier for brands to reach a global audience, personalize their marketing efforts, save on ad spend by marketing organically and gain insights into their customers' preferences and behaviors using analytics tools.