Social media is a great tool for growing brand awareness and engaging with potential customers. If you want to get the best results, having an effective social media strategy is key. It’s important to review your strategy on a regular basis, especially since algorithms change, trends change, and company goals changes. Here are five key factors to keep in mind to help you create a better social media strategy.

Go Where Your Target Customers Are

For this step, you want to have a good idea of who your target customers are. Once you know this, research which social media platforms they’re likely to use and work on building a brand presence there. Rather than joining as many platforms as you can find, start with just a couple. Once you’re excelling at those, you can consider joining others, as long as it makes sense for your brand and your audience.

Be Authentic

Has “authentic” become a bit of a buzzword? Sure. Is it still good advice? Yes! Especially nowadays, customers want to support brands that seem authentic and show their personality. When creating a social media strategy, think of opportunities to share content that lets your personality shine. This authenticity can help create a stronger emotional bond between your audience and your brand.

Post Quality Content Consistently

Instead of scrambling to put posts together at the last minute just for the sake of posting, take time to create strategic, high-quality posts based on your social media strategy and goals. Publish posts that educate, inspire, or entertain your audience, and are in line with your brand. Address your audience’s pain points and how you solve those problems, rather than simply talking about the features of your product or service. To stay consistent, it can be helpful to create several posts in one sitting and schedule them to go live on a later date.

Engage With Your Audience

Social media is meant to be social. It gives you the perfect opportunity to engage with your audience and strengthen your relationship with them. Take time on a regular basis to read and respond to comments and direct messages. You can also use social listening tools to discover conversations people are having about your brand online so you can join in. Engaging with your audience also allows you to show your brand’s personality.

Keep an Eye on Analytics

Some of your social media content will perform better than others. By reviewing your analytics on a regular basis, you can see which content most resonated with your audience, allowing you to adjust your social media strategy to include more of what works and less of what doesn’t. Don’t just look at the number of likes; pay attention to reach, impressions, and engagement rate, too. Look at the topics, format (picture vs video vs text only, etc.), and days and time the best-performing posts were published and replicate that in future posts.

Boost Your Social Media Strategy

A well thought out social media strategy can help you engage with the right people in the right place at the right time, strengthening brand awareness and brand loyalty. However, social media can take a lot of time and effort. If you don’t want to do it all yourself, Healthy Dash of Social can help you create an effective social media strategy. We also offer social media management, content creation, growth and community management, and more. Contact us to schedule your free 30-minute chat.