We all know that social media marketing is important for modern businesses; it is rare to find a company that doesn't see advantages in posting on at least one of the key social networks. Even so, companies underestimate their power. They set up their accounts just to have a presence, then post content compulsively or simply don't post anything at all.
For your social media efforts to pay off, you need a strategy. Here are 6 reasons why:
1. You Create Direction
Without a strategy, you are shooting without a target. You may have some kind of plan, or you vaguely know which direction you are aiming in, but there is no precision or overall pattern. You wouldn't run your sales without a plan, so why do it with social media?
People underestimate the strategy required to make social media work, so they just post things and hope they stick. But your social channels are valuable assets that should have a defined place in your marketing plan.
With a strategy in place, every part of your social media can be tailored to your commercial and business goals. From your profile images and each individual post to a month-long campaign, everything works together and moves toward the same goal.
The result:
Your accounts will actually increase in value, you will build brand awareness and capture new prospects, instead of being there simply because it's the 21st century and you have to be on social media. And with a reason to exist, creating social content will be easier and more effective.
2. You Can Measure, Report and Improve
If you are managing your social media day to day, monitoring can tend to fall by the wayside. Without monitoring or measuring your activity and engagement, you won't know what is working, and if you don't know what works, you could be investing money in ineffective content or on the wrong platforms.
In your strategy, you should set aside time to analyze the performance of your posts and then use the insights gathered to guide your content. The strategy itself acts as a framework and a benchmark, so if you see a pattern between the posts that perform well and the ones that flop, you can make adjustments.
The result:
You will adjust your tactics, and it will pay off. Instead of wasting time on things that don't work, or getting stuck in a rut posting the same ineffective things, you will be able to respond dynamically to your audience and to the changing digital seasons. And you will have clear goals to aim for and to measure your success against.
3. Everything Becomes More Efficient
Creating a strategy and planning your content ahead of time takes time, but it will save you some in the long run. Having a clear direction and your goals mapped out in alignment will make you more efficient. You will focus on what you need to do and, therefore, spend less time thinking about what to post or searching for content at the last minute.
It is also easier to keep track of your time: unplanned social posts can rack up minutes if you don't keep an eye on the clock.
The result:
Overall, your social media management experience will be less stressful. It will be much easier to stay within your budget, and you will save time overall, which you can then use to create better content, analyze your efforts or even give yourself a moment of meditation each day. How about that?
4. You Will Keep Your Social Media Active
One of the biggest barriers to social media success is inconsistency: sporadic posts and big bursts of social activity followed by days of silence.
This is the kind of approach that fails to connect your brand with an audience, which makes it harder to gain new followers while also driving away older ones. These impacts are greatly reduced with a strategy: you will know what to post and when to post it, so you never overload or starve your audience.
And with a pre-planned calendar, you will never be thrown off by a big event.
The result:
You will be able to better develop and maintain your organic presence with consistent, sustained activity. In addition, you will keep your brand fresh in your audience's mind, so that when they are ready to buy, they think of you.
5. It Ensures You Stay Consistent
In addition to the consistency of regular posting mentioned above, you will also be able to make sure the posts themselves are always in line with your brand identity, tone of voice and goals.
Your strategy can act as a playbook that any employee, agency or influencer can pick up and use to create content that matches your social media standards.
As your team changes or expands, new staff can quickly get familiar with your brand's social assets. They will know exactly what type of content to post or create, when to do it and why.
The result:
You will establish a more coherent social presence, no matter who is writing for the brand. And you will save time while doing it, since handoffs become more efficient and everyone can refer to the strategy if needed.
6. You Will Be Prepared for Anything
What happens when your two social media leads are out of the office? One is on vacation and the other has unexpectedly gotten sick.
Does everything go quiet until one of them comes back, or do you hand the task over to someone else and hope it doesn't get criticized?
Neither. With a strategy, all the key posts will already be created. If you are really organized, they will also be scheduled; the only thing left to do will be to respond to your audience, and you will have procedures for how to respond set out in your strategy, covering everything from praise and inquiries to negative comments and complaints.
The result:
You will never be left empty-handed, even when the unexpected happens. And with the procedures in place, you will always respond to your audience's questions and comments effectively and efficiently, showing them that you are there, that you care and that you are happy to have a conversation.
It's social media, after all.
At digitalegia, we can help you with a social media strategy that, far beyond keeping you active, helps you attract and close customers. Schedule a free consultation with us on the right side of this page. We want to help you.
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