Steps to follow to create your social media strategy

Social networks are becoming more and more important in our daily lives. As a place for exchange, sharing, trends and inspiration, it is important for brands to adapt their communication and implement digital actions. A marketing strategy adapted to social networks must therefore be put in place. But how do you create a social media strategy? What does it consist of? And what are its advantages? We tell you more!

What is a social media strategy?

With more than 4 billion active users, or about 55% of the world's population, social networks have become a key development element for brands. Indeed, marketing a qualitative and efficient product/service is one thing, but delivering the right message to the right people using the right means is just as important! Companies have taken this challenge into account and are developing their online presence by implementing a coherent and effective social media strategy.

As a reminder, the term social media refers to the digital platforms present on the Internet and allowing to publish content, interact and exchange between Internet users. Social media are therefore a set of platforms on which numerous functions are offered. Social networks are sites specifically dedicated to connecting users with each other. Depending on each social network, certain features will be more prominent, such as videos on TikTokphotos/videos/stories on Instagram or post on Facebook for example. Social networks are therefore part of social media, but they are only one part of social media, which also includes blogs, forums, etc.

Why is the implementation of a social media strategy important?

The main goal of a social media strategy is to highlight your brand, products and services in order to develop your brand. Indeed, the digital presence is nowadays very important and necessary. Different objectives can then be set:

Creating a community
Increased visibility and awareness
Sale of its products / services
Improve your brand image
Asserting your position
Offer a qualitative service on social networks

The implementation of a social media strategy therefore offers many advantages. By improving its visibility and notoriety, a brand will increase its popularity and therefore its field of action. On the other hand, by creating a community and uniting Internet users, your brand will gain legitimacy. The social media strategy can also help to achieve the objectives of traffic to its website.

The creation of a social media strategy therefore offers many benefits to companies, both from the point of view of organising and structuring actions and for measuring the performance and effectiveness of the actions carried out: ideal!

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What are the steps to follow to establish an effective social media strategy?

Once you have developed your marketing and communication strategy, you can set up your social media strategy. It focuses on your communication objectives that require action on social media. For example, you want to gain visibility and awareness on Instagram, because your core target is on this social network, the social media strategy will allow you to set up actions in an organised manner in order to achieve your objective!

Target

Your marketing strategy established beforehand allows you to clearly identify your target, i.e. to whom your communication should be directed. It is now time to refine this target with additional information such as hobbies, habits, characters, technologies used... This is the Persona stage! This imaginary character allows you to make a mental representation of what your typical target would like and thus to provide solutions to their problems.

This is a very important step in knowing your audience inside out so that you can speak to them in the best possible way. Indeed, you will not create the same content in B2B as in B2C, or by addressing an audience of 18-25 year olds or 45-65 year olds for example. This step will help you to identify the most suitable media, the themes to be addressed and the content format in order to attract the attention of your target audience.

Message

You need to choose carefully the message you want to convey to your target audience. It's a good idea to carry out an audit and benchmark beforehand. This will enable you to see what you are already doing on social media and then make recommendations on what would be interesting to put in place. The choice of topics is very important in order to produce high-quality, innovative content. To assert your brand image, you need to adopt an appropriate tone in your texts in order to attract your target's attention, arouse their interest, provoke desire and get them to take action: this is the AIDA method. What's more, you need to create content that matches the expectations of Internet users. The form your message takes is therefore important. Video, carousel, photo, story, filter... Many things can be envisaged and implemented. Augmented reality is particularly popular with Internet users. This new technology offers web users a unique immersive experience: a very interesting format that you can incorporate into your editorial line, for example.

Objectives

The definition of precise objectives is very important. Indeed, they justify the reasons for your actions on social media: gain in visibility, awareness, increase in traffic, engagement, generation of qualified leads. For this, we advise you to use the SMART technique. Your objectives must be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. By following this framework, you can define clear and precise objectives in order to set up effective and coherent actions.

Strategy

The use of social media requires you to set your plan in order to put your actions in place properly. Thus, it is interesting to alternate your actions so that they complement each other. For example, you can share content with the objective of uniting a community while alternating with publications highlighting discounts and new products.... To generate new leads. The strategy thus allows you to create a complete digital ecosystem with relevant themes, an adapted vocabulary and a coherent tone in order to achieve your objectives.

Technologies / Touchpoints

With your target audience, objectives, message and overall strategy defined, you can now select the most appropriate social media. The aim is to invest in social media that will allow you to reach your target audience, and therefore your potential customers. By keeping an eye on the latest news and trends, and based on the needs and behaviours of your target audience, you will make the most appropriate choice among the social media at your disposal: blog, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, Snapchat...

Evaluate

Since all actions have consequences, it is necessary to evaluate the actions carried out in order to adjust them if necessary. It is therefore necessary to analyse the KPIs according to your objective: the increase in followers if you wish to create a community, the rate of engagement of publications to see the interest aroused by the content or the number of clicks for example. The origin of the traffic is also interesting to see if the publications made increase the traffic.

Resources

Finally, it is necessary to determine the resources you will need to establish your social media strategy. Budget, deadlines, internal skills, staffing... All these factors must be taken into account in order to make decisions adapted to your objectives.

The implementation of a social media strategy is therefore a gradual process that follows different stages. Social media are a very interesting means of expression to integrate into your communication, particularly by thinking about their relevance, characteristics and impact beforehand. The TOMSTER model will help you to deploy your social media strategy in the best possible way while adjusting it according to the results. Now that you know how to implement a strategy, you can get started.