5 Reasons Why You Need a Social Media Marketing Strategy

 Most small businesses do not have the manpower or financial resources to invest in an in-house team for their social media efforts. Studies show that at the bare minimum, social media marketers spend at least 6 hrs per week on social media for a business.

Investing that much time into social media marketing while running your business, working with clients, managing employees, handling finances, strategizing, etc. can be difficult to maintain. Incorporating a social media marketing strategy can maximize your efficiency and increase your results.

5 Key Benefits of a Social Media Strategy

A *social media strategy* is detrimental to your businesses success on social media. That is why it is extremely important to invest the upfront time and effort into a social media strategy and plan.

Social media strategies can be easily followed and referred to while handling day-to-day social media tasks.

1. Aligning your social media goals with your business goals

“The primary purpose of any marketing initiative should be to help your business in some way.” – Zach Williams

If your social media goals aren’t assisting your business in achieving those objectives, you’re wasting valuable resources. A social media strategy helps you outline your businesses objectives and directly relate them to your social media marketing goals.

SMART social media goals make it easy to map out your social media strategy and provide the perfect starting point for any marketing objective.

2. Building and maintaining your brands voice

“Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.” –  Steve Forbes

Part of building a brand is establishing a brand voice, identifying what your brand stands for, what it represents, etc. What better way is there to communicate your brand to your target consumers than by using social media?

A great social media strategy identifies your brand clearly and descriptively. When creating and/or curating content, you’ll always be able to refer to your social media strategy to ensure your content is aligned with your brands voice and image.

3. Clearly identifies who your target audience / consumers are

“Publishing content on social media without know who you’re publishing the content for is like aimlessly shooting at a target.” –  Zach Williams

Before ever starting on social media, your business must first know exactly who your consumers/target audience are. With a social media strategy, you’ll create social media buyer personas which will help you identify the important characteristics of who your ideal customer is.

This will not only assist you when creating content, it will also help you achieve your goals, increase your engagement, and drive new customers to your business.

4. Insight into what your competitors are doing

“If we live in a world where information drives what we do, the information we get becomes the most important thing. The person who chooses that information has the power.” – Seth Godin

What are you currently doing better than your competitors on social media? If you’re unable to honestly answer that question, then you need to complete a social media competitor analysis.

A social media competitor analysis will give you the information you need to beat your competitors in the social media landscape and in turn, in business.

5. Maintain organization for maximum efficiency

“Lost time is never found again.” – Benjamin Franklin

We know first hand just how time consuming daily business operations can be. Added to that, an unorganized social media marketing strategy can be responsible for lost time, lost customers, or both.

Your social media marketing strategy should also include an *organized posting schedule* which will outline the frequency of posts as well as time(s) of day. 

Next, you can create a content calendar or schedule that will outline at minimum the next week of your social media content distribution. This will take the guess work out of what you should post next.

Wrapping Up

When you have a clear goal that is well defined, you can begin to build your strategy accordingly. Social Media Marketing is not as difficult as most business owners make it. With the right tools and goals in place, you can begin to maximize your businesses return from social media tactics.