SECRETS OF A SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

Thousands of business ventures and persons sprint onto the congested platforms of the social media with a panting thirst for profit and marketplace influence.
If well-equipped to compete, they achieve their goals and stay long on the market shelves. But, the ill-equipped ones struggle to hit goals running.

Social media is one powerful tool whose force many people have failed to wield.

A social media strategy that failed in 2017 was in the case of Pepsi. Trying to prove its product as a culturally unifying force, it had the reality show star, Kendall Jenner, offer a police officer a can of Pepsi and in their words, “…and we can have her settle a Black Lives Matter standoff between protestors and police…”
An outrageous advert in a highly-tensed protest engendered by police discriminating brutality towards the Black race was a no-no.
Criticized as insensitive to its audience, it was pulled down after a thorough backlash.

Oops! I have not defined what a social media strategy is. Pardon me.

In plain words, a social media strategy is that plan that outlines your goals, audience, and tactics for using social media to achieve those goals. It is also a roadmap that helps you make the most of your social media presence and reach your target audience.

Are you ready to take your social media game to the next level? Are you frustrated with your current results and looking for the secret sauce that will get you the success you crave?
Then you’ve come to the right place!

In this article, I’ll share the little-known secrets of social media strategy that will have you wondering why you didn’t know them before. You’ll learn how to create a strategy that’s unique, effective, and results-driven.

Let’s get started!

There are many secrets to a successful social media strategy, but some of the most important ones are:

A. Defining your goals and objectives.
This is crucial because it gives you a roadmap to follow and helps you determine what success looks like for your social media strategy. Your goals and objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (also known as SMART goals). For example, a specific goal might be to increase website traffic from social media by 20% in the next 6 months. A measurable goal might be to get 100 new followers on Instagram in the next 3 months.

B. Understanding your target audience.
This is important because you need to know who you’re trying to reach with your social media strategy. You can determine your target audience by looking at factors like age, gender, location, interests, and behaviors. Once you know who your target audience is, you can create content that’s tailored to them and that’s more likely to resonate with them.

C. Creating engaging and relevant content.
This is the heart of any successful social media strategy. Your content should be interesting, informative, and valuable to your target audience. It should also be visually appealing and easy to digest. Additionally, it’s important to post regularly and consistently so that you stay top of mind for your audience. Does this make sense?

D. Being consistent and active on your chosen platforms.
You must know that it is NEVER ENOUGH to just post great content – you also need to engage with your audience and respond to their comments and questions. This shows that you’re listening to them and that you care about their thoughts and opinions.

E. Measuring and analyzing your results.
The next secret is measuring and analyzing your results. Seeing proven results of your social media strategy is adequate encouragement to go further and better. They also tell you what to improve on and how. You can measure things like engagement, reach, and conversions. This data will help you make informed decisions about your strategy going forward.
Have you learnt to measure your social media strategy progress? Let me teach you a bit.
* Let’s start with Facebook. On Facebook, you can measure things like page likes, post reach, post engagement, and post clicks. You can also use Facebook Insights to get more detailed information about your audience and how they’re interacting with your content.
* For Instagram, you can measure things like followers, likes, comments, and saved posts. You can also use Instagram Insights to get more detailed information about your audience. And for Twitter, you can measure things like followers, retweets, likes, and mentions. You can also use Twitter Analytics to get more detailed information.
* On YouTube, you can measure things like video views, watch time, likes, comments, and subscribers. You can also use YouTube Analytics to get more detailed information. It’s also important to pay attention to audience retention – that is, how long people are watching your videos.

F. Learning and adapting based on your results.
This is the last rung on the ladder. Learning and adapting based on your results means taking the data you’ve collected and using it to make informed decisions about your social media strategy.
This could include things like:

• Tweaking your content to make it more engaging.
• Adjusting your posting schedule to find the best time to post.
• Trying different platforms to see where your audience is most active.
• Testing different types of content to see what resonates best with your audience.

Never forget that growth demands learning, unlearning and relearning. Social media strategizing is not for the stiff-necked who stick to outdated ways. You must keep learning to improve.

That is how you win in the race.

Good luck, world-shakers!