How To Create a Social Media Strategy: 6 Steps

When it comes to social media marketing, crafting a focused approach is the best way to optimize your efforts. Creating a data-driven social media strategy ensures that your marketing tactics align with your goals — and achieve your desired results.

Read on to find out why social media marketing matters and how to create a social media marketing strategy that boosts your online presence.

What’s Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing means promoting your brand and products or services on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Several tactics can help you spread the word about your offering. For example, you can pay for ads, share video content, and use trending hashtags to reach a broader audience.

What’s a Social Media Marketing Strategy?

A social media marketing strategy is a plan that defines how you’ll use one or more platforms to reach your marketing goals. Common objectives include increasing follower counts, boosting content engagement, and converting viewers into buyers. 

When drafting a strategy, cover the following information:

• Marketing goals
• Target audience overview
• Competitor analysis
• Platform(s) you’ll use
• Content strategy (what you’ll post and when)
• Audience engagement plan
• Paid social media strategy and budget
• Metrics for tracking progress
• Team roles and responsibilities
• General budget
• Branding guidelines

Social media strategy documents are usually quite thorough and include these categories. However, anyone can draft a quick strategy that outlines their goals, content ideas, and timelines.

The Benefits of Having a Social Media Marketing Strategy

Whether you’re part of a marketing team or an individual content creator, here are a few key impacts of social media planning.

Increase Brand Awareness

About 70% of Americans use social media, making it a fantastic (and often free) way to reach a broad audience. Adding social media to your marketing strategy means you’re sharing content with many more viewers than if you stuck with tactics like email campaigns and word of mouth. 

Attract the Right Followers

A social media strategy will clearly define your audience — including when they’re online and on which platforms. With these insights, you can strategically post when the right people (those more likely to follow or convert) will see it. 

For a head start, check out our guides on the best times to post on popular social media platforms:

• Best time to post on Instagram
• Best time to post on Facebook
• Best time to post on TikTok
• Best time to post on YouTube

Combine these insights with information about your audience to determine your ideal posting schedule. 

Support Performance Measurement

A great social media strategy defines goals and the key metrics you’ll use to measure progress and success. This information gives you insights into how well your posts are performing, so every effort you or your teammates make moves you toward your goals. Additionally, if you aren’t seeing the numbers you expect, you can pivot more quickly.

Boost Earnings

According to Sprout Social's 2021 report, about one in three consumers find products and brands via social media. Prioritize this advertising avenue in your marketing strategy to benefit from consumers’ love of online shopping. Plus, targeting social media allows you to focus on those who are more likely to make a purchase, increasing your return on investment.

How To Create a Social Media Strategy: 6 Steps

Here’s a six-step guide for crafting a social media marketing plan. This is for content teams and solo creators alike — draft something as simple or comprehensive as you need.

1. Set Goals and KPIs

Start by defining your goals, such as increased brand awareness, website traffic, or conversions. Then, set specific key performance indicators (KPIs) and determine how to track them and when to check on progress. 

Here are a few common social media-focused metrics you might track:

• Post reach is the number of unique users who viewed your content. This metric tells you how effectively your content is being distributed. A high post reach likely means your content is well-optimized for the algorithm, includes relevant hashtags, and is engaging.
• Impressions are the total number of times your post is displayed to a platform’s users, including the same user seeing it multiple times. Tracking this metric helps you understand how popular your content is. If this number is high, your post is likely trending.
• Hashtag performance measures hashtag efficacy, including engagement and the number of new users discovering your content via tags. These insights show you how to refine your hashtag strategy for increased content visibility and relevance.
• Sales or conversions are an excellent metric to track, especially if you want to see if new buyers discovered your product through social media. Marketing platforms like HubSpot can monitor this.

2. Research Your Target Audience

Every social media platform appeals to different viewers, so gain a clear understanding of your target audience so you can choose platforms strategically. Look at your current followers and buyers for this information, research competitors’ audiences, and use tools like HubSpot and Semrush for further insights. 

If you already have brand and/or company-specific social media accounts, you can also look into the audience insights these platforms provide. 

3. Analyze Your Competitors

You want your audience to choose you over competitors, so it’s important to improve upon other brands’ social media strategies. Find and fill content gaps they’re not covering, for instance, or target hashtags they’re missing out on.

Another option is embracing some of their high-performing strategies. Say a competitor posts every Monday at 9 a.m. and gets a lot of engagement — try out the same schedule. 

4. Choose Your Social Media Platforms

Use your audience insights to determine which platforms your audience frequents and prioritize these. That way, there’s a higher chance your content reaches the right people: those interested in your brand and willing to follow or convert.

5. Create a Content Calendar

Time for the fun part — plan out your content creation, including what you’ll create, how you’ll do so, and when you’ll post. Include both evergreen (timeless) and seasonal content to keep your audience engaged throughout the year.

6. Publish and Track Results

As your content is published, track your campaign by either manually finding the metrics you need (like counting new followers) or via a marketing program like HubSpot. Many social media platforms also offer this data. For example, Facebook has a “Page Insights” hub, and Instagram has an “Account Insights” tab.

Note what’s working and what’s not, adjusting your strategy as needed. However, don’t overwrite what you originally planned in your strategy document. Instead, compare the initial plan to current results to better understand how you can improve your original process.

Examples of Great Social Media Strategies

Here are some great social media marketing strategy examples to further illustrate the concept and help you draft something impactful. 

Nike: Expanding Global Reach and Localizing Content

Nike uses influencer collaborations and highly tailored content to resonate with the company’s various audiences. Beyond working with high-profile athletes and celebrities, Nike creates niche social media accounts dedicated to specific sports, cities, and countries. This localized approach allows the brand to resonate with unique communities, creating a better sense of relevance and authenticity than a broader marketing campaign.

Victoria’s Secret: Shifting Toward Inclusivity

Victoria’s Secret successfully modernized their marketing strategy by pivoting from traditional glamor-focused content to more authentic and inclusive storytelling. For instance, their Instagram feed now features diverse content, such as interviews with everyday people on the street. This celebrates a wider range of voices and demographics than they used to, appealing to a wider audience. 

Pringles: Engaging the Community

Pringles has used the playful nature of their brand to excel in social media marketing, particularly on TikTok. For example, their #PlayWithPringles campaign encouraged posters to use Pringles cans in creative and funny ways. This resulted in over two million user-generated videos and a staggering 4.7 billion views. 

Improve Your Social Media Metrics With Captions

Creating a comprehensive social media strategy tailored to your industry, content, and audience isn’t easy. Let Captions lighten the workload. 

Captions is an AI platform that offers every tool needed to streamline your content creation process. Use AI Edit to improve your content in a few clicks, automatically translate content to broaden your audience, and create video ads that convert. 

Once your content is ready to upload, let Social Studio handle your schedule. Share your website link, cast an AI avatar, and have AI auto-post videos.

Try Captions today and enjoy sharing professional, engagement-worthy content — faster.