An agent's guide to formulating a social media strategy

WHY YOU NEED A STRATEGY

Social media marketing consists of four main forms:

1. Organic

Unpaid content and activity targeted to reach users that naturally picks up performance metrics.

2. Influencer

An agreed promotion that is paid or unpaid with other parties such as a person, brand or even publisher.

3. Paid social

Targeted advertisements directed at custom audiences which can be done from your brand, your posted content or influencer partnership content.

4. Earned media

Content promoting your business that hasn’t been paid for or created by you – this is a form of user-generated content.

BUILDING YOUR STRATEGY

A social media strategy is not one-size-fits-all or a one-off box-ticking exercise. Your strategy needs to be bespoke to you, aligning with the social media landscape and agile enough to evolve.

I split this into four phases: understanding; aligning; implementing; and analysing. While strategies distil a wealth of information and considerations, the following is a guide with a tip of the iceberg for each phase, which will help you to build out a starter strategy.

PHASE 1 – UNDERSTANDING

The goal of this phase is to gain as much of an understanding as possible about who you and your target audience are, where you are right now in the landscape and where you want to go, and what you can deploy to achieve your goals.

Ask yourself these key questions:

1. What do you want to be known for?

Consider: Your business; the brand; tone of voice; unique selling points; and service.

2. Who do you need to be known by?

Consider: Target audience; age; gender; location; income; and persona.

3. What are your goals and current return on investment?

Consider: Based on your business set-up; measurable positive or negative impact of current marketing efforts overall and your social media marketing.

4. Which resources do you have at your disposal?

Consider: Internal, external and financial; team set-up; agency or service support; tools; budget; and time.

5. Who are your current competitors and who do you aspire to be like?

Consider: Competitor analysis; social media accounts/activity; content; influencers; and paid activity. What can you learn from them, good or bad!

PHASE 2 – ALIGNING

The goal here is to begin to knit the above together with the considerations below into a skeleton strategy; what, where and how you’re going deploy your social media marketing activities.

1. Platform and form focus

Consider: What platforms and which forms of  social media marketing are required to connect with your target audience and drive your goals.

2. Social-first content – organic

Consider: Which content formats are native to the platform you’re posting on and align with the content your target audience segments seek there.

3. Social media management and community management – organic

Consider: Which platform features are rewarded by the platform, e.g., Reels on Instagram, and consumed by your target audience. How can you leverage community management to enhance discovery, build an engaged community around your brand, and support customer service?

PHASE 3 – IMPLEMENTING

Once you have all of your ducks in a row, you can begin to action your skeleton strategy. The key things you should be clear on are: your goals and how you’re measuring them; internal and external stakeholders’ roles and responsibilities; budget; and timeframes.

PHASE 4 - ANALYSING

The goal here is to really understand your performance metrics versus your goals and the landscape. To do this meaningfully, use several methods across this and find correlations, breaking it down into:

1. Big picture

With a bird’s-eye view, how does your performance compare to your competitors and the social media landscape as a whole?

2. Deep-dive

Social moves fast – use short-term analysis such as top-performing posts in your weekly and monthly performance. Use grouped analysis such as per content format e.g., inspirational content. Doing this will give you insights to build out your strategy whilst keeping it agile, aligned to your goals and maximising return on investment.

Lauren Hughes is head of strategy at Social Trinity and a TTG 30 Under 30 member. Read her advice for using Reels to drive more growth and engagement and earning clients’ trust with authentic imagery.