10-Step Checklist for Social Media Strategy Success!

1. Define Clear Goals

This is the basis of your social media management or campaign strategy. 

Defining goals (and objectives) gives you direction and purpose and will help you

 narrow down the main themes that revolve around your content.

2. Get To Know Your Audience

This is one of the most important parts of your social strategy. Learn about your

 audience demographics, but beyond that, find out what ticks them off.

Ask them what their pain points are, find out what publications they read and

where they hang out. All of this information will help you create content that

really resonates with them and help you build an engaged community.

3. Choose the Right Platform

Do your research and learn how each social media network works and choose

the right one for your brand.

Is your target audience active on the network? Do you have the resources to

create the content needed for a particular channel?

4. Create a Content Bank

Now that you have set your goals and you know which networks you want to be 

active in, you should create a content bank.

Review all your offline marketing materials and consider how you can support

them online with content. Create or source content that supports your goals Oh,

time and headaches you will save yourself with it.

5. Identify Right Keywords and Hashtags

A little more research here, but collecting a bank of top industry keywords or

hashtags used by your audience will make it easier to compose messaging.

Finding the right hashtags is the key to reaching your target audience - there are

many tools you can use to help.

6. Create a Content Schedule

Once you have your bank of content you need to create a schedule.

Based on your purpose and the amount of content you have, determine how

often you want to post on social media and on what day. I recommend using a

mix of live and scheduled posts to balance your content, and to stay current with

industry topics or topics related to your audience.

7. Set Up Social Media Tools

To help save time, consider using the various social media tools on offer Some of

my favorites for planning and scheduling posts are Hootsuite or AgoraPulse. I

use Bit.ly for link shortening and light tracking.

Everyone will have a choice of different tools, so be sure to try a few and go with

the ones that you understand the most.

8. Set Up Your Analytics

I like to analyze what's working and what's not across all my client accounts - it's

an essential part of tweaking and improving your social media strategy.

Navigating analysis can be confusing because each network has too many

metrics to keep track of. In general, I recommend that you focus on increasing

your followers, reaching out to your posts, and more importantly, how engaged

your audience is with your content.

You also need to focus on which days and times work best - your timing is

essential to maximize the reach of your posts.

9. Conduct a Social Media Audit

Practice conducting a social media audit on your channels periodically.

A self-audit can help you detect inconsistencies across channels, review what

campaigns worked (or didn't), benchmarks, and even set new goals that enable

you to continually improve your social media strategy.

10. Keep an eye on the competition

You can learn a lot by watching others.

See what your competitors do well - and what flops so you don't make the same mistake.

As a bonus - make sure your images are as high quality as possible and consider

creating a theme for your accounts for your advanced users.

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