Keep getting told that you need a social media strategy for your business? Don’t know where to get started? You’ve come to the right place 😉

But wait… before you read on any further, the first question you need to be asking yourself is, do I have a brand strategy?

Before exploring any social media strategy, you must have one in place for your business or brand. Panicking a little? Fear not because the amazing Jessica Knowles is here with everything you need to know about getting started with your brand strategy. Even if you’ve got your strategy already in place, this is well worth a read.

4 Key Brand Strategies Any Business Owner Can Use To Seize Profitable Opportunities

Good wasn’t it?

Now you’ve got a better idea for your brand’s strategy and what needs to be done to achieve that, we can take a closer dive into your social media strategy. Two things which work hand-in-hand.

But why do I need a social media strategy you might be asking yourself? Without one and having no clear direction or purpose for your social media presence is quite frankly, pointless.

You need to think about what your business or brand wants to achieve from social media. Maybe it is to increase your email database? Drive traffic to your website? Or even sell your product? Whichever it is (and it might be more than one), you need to have that purpose in mind from day one.

On the flip side, if you’re thinking all I want from social media is a presence for my business, that is absolutely fine but it all needs to aim towards an end goal. Just consider for a moment that you build a well engaged Instagram community of 30,000 people but when you log on one day, Instagram has completely disappeared.

Where are those 30,000 people now? If they haven’t been to your website, bought from your shop or subscribed to your e-newsletter, you’ve most probably lost them.

Once you have that clear purpose and end goal, you need to start thinking about how you can achieve it on social media, as well as what you can do with your content and how you can utilise the features within each channel to turn your followers and social community into customers or brand advocates for life.

If you’ve already got a social media presence, it is well worth analysing what has worked well and what hasn’t previously. Determining that will allow you to pinpoint what your ideal target audience wants to see from your brand on social media and what content they value.

This is where it starts to get exciting and where we introduce the concept of ‘content pillars’ to you.

A ‘content pillar’ is a way of splitting your key messaging into 3 to 5 key topic areas and themes which your content plan and social media presence will be based on.

Those ‘content pillars’ will differ for every business but best practice would see you consider a pillar for your product/service, one that entertains, one that educates and finally one that inspires.

You want each of your social media channels to become a hub that your community comes to because it adds value to them and their lives.

If your brand utilises more than one social media platform, it is important to consider what those specific content pillars will be for each channel.

Twitter has a very different purpose from Instagram and likewise content posted on Facebook may be completely different to that published on LinkedIn.

Take Facebook for example. On that platform you need to be creating content which fits within your content pillars but that is also sharable, personable and relatable to your audience.

Facebook prioritises the type of content which you see your friends and family posting, so in theory, your Facebook content plan needs to inspire, educate, entertain and convert but in a way in which the algorithm will show it to more people and will instantly resonate with a Facebook audience.

Once you have your channels and ‘content pillars’ at the ready, you need to make sure you are creating great content and utilising the latest platform features.

But you need a strategy for those features too. Another strategy!? Oh yes! Take Instagram Reels for example. There is nothing worse than visiting a brand’s Instagram page and getting all excited because they have a Reels tab, only to find they have one published Reel and that was from last Christmas.

As with your main social media strategy, you need to have a purpose and a goal for your Reels or for going live. Is it to inspire, educate, convert or entertain? For the latter, we’d definitely recommend Reels 😉

Talking of other strategies 👀 once you have nailed your organic social media strategy (organic meaning no paid spend to support it), a paid social strategy would be the next step for you. That’s a completely different blog though, so stay tuned for that one.

Depending on where your business is in its “social media life” will have an impact on your strategy but whether you’re just launching your first Facebook page or you’ve been posting on Instagram for years, you still need a social media strategy and purpose.

Once you have that in place, start testing different types of content at various times during the day, to see which performs best.

That accompanied by your brand new ‘content pillars’ and a well planned and thought through purpose and goal, will allow you to take your social media to the next level.

We offer social media strategies here at Huddle Social, so if you would like to discuss more and would like some help with yours, please get in touch!