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A comprehensive social media strategy can seem overwhelming but it doesn’t need to be. You need to follow a formula of best practices and set the right goals from the beginning. In this blog, we will check some important boxes and give you guidance on how a solid social media strategy can grow your business. 

Before you implement a social media strategy a high-level mnemonic can assist you, i.e. OCTO. It stands for objectives, content, targeting, and optimization. A common mistake brands make is that their objective is not focused enough. Your business objective could be anywhere from brand awareness to customer retention. The more specific you can get, the better your strategy will yield desirable results.

Choosing the right platform(s) for your social media online presence can be a daunting task but it doesn’t have to be. For ex., LinkedIn is great for B2B marketing, while Pinterest can work well for retail sales, fashion, DIY, beauty, and targets predominantly female. Instagram is great for engaging a younger audience, showing your products, and demonstrating your brand culture. Twitter can be a good choice for building thought leadership, tweeting trending topics and communicating news, culture, and events. Facebook doesn’t need an introduction and it’s a great choice for a wide variety of marketing and offers excellent audience targeting options. The various social media platforms also have their own drawbacks and it’s important to be aware of them. For ex., Facebook’s drawback can be clickbait and fake news while Pinterest’s disadvantage can be that its platform has a very niche demographic. 

Let’s take a look at a social media strategy checklist that will help your brand to be set up for success. First, here’s an overview of the social media strategy cycle: Listen – Marketing Strategy – Target Audience – Content – Tools – Implement – Track and Measure – Adjust, and back to Listen, etc. 

1. Listen and Assess the Landscape
   1. Conduct a listening audit
   2. Develop insights on customers, competitors, and content 
2. Marketing Strategy
   1. Define a clear, single marketing strategy. Focus is key here
   2. Have different strategies and objectives for each network
3. Define a clear target audience. Be very specific and define personas if possible to understand your audience
4. Content
   1. Create different content buckets that are of value for your target audience
   2. Create a content plan for each social media platform
5. Tools
   1. Make a priority list of what social media networks are the most important to you
   2. Determine time and budget investment and if a paid social media strategy is necessary to achieve your goals
6. Implement
   1. Have a management plan and audience engagement plan
7. Track & Measure
   1. Define your most important KPIs (Key Point Interests) based on your business’ objectives
   2. Also define a few secondary KPIs
   3. Establish the benchmarks to track performance
8. Adjust
   1. Establish a workflow/tasks to implement strategy and optimizations on an as-needed basis
   2. Follow new trends and adjust accordingly to stay ahead of your competition