The development of a social media strategy includes the creation of strategies for social media content and customer engagement as well as a detailed social media action plan and calendar. Equally as important is determining how the impact and success of the social media activities will be tracked and analysed.
By the end of this topic, you will understand:
- Strategies for social media content development, customer engagement and customer service
- How to develop and document a social media action plan
- Why it is important to use a social media calendar
- How to establish key performance indicators to measure the success of social media activity
- The use of tracking and analytics for social media engagement
- The importance of aligning social media strategy with organisational objectives.
A social media strategy is a detailed blueprint that describes the purpose of an organisation’s social media activities, the goals it wants to achieve, how its goals will be achieved and how success will be measured.
It will usually include:
- Content strategy
- Engagement strategy
- Customer service strategy
This video discusses the high-level social media strategy for Tourism Australia:
Content Strategy
A strong content strategy will build brand awareness and create business. It is important that the content created stays on brand, being true to the brand’s ‘voice’. Always ensure the content aligns with the organisation’s overall goals.
It is also helpful to review and analyse previous posts to uncover which posts perform well versus the posts that do not gain traction. Sprout Social lists the top reasons that consumers unfollow brands on social media:
It is important to strike a balance between the posts team members want to make and the content the brand’s followers want to see. It may be helpful to define the purpose of each social media platform in use.
For example:
- We will use LinkedIn to promote our company culture and attract new talent.
- We will use Instagram to promote new products in a way that is visually appealing.
Engagement Strategy
While having hundreds or even thousands of followers on social media may be impressive, it is important to encourage followers to actively engage with the brand’s account.
When its followers are engaged with a brand through social media, they are more likely to purchase from it and become brand advocates. HubSpot has developed an engagement strategy using the initialism ‘AEIOU’:
Ask questions
Invoke Expressions
Provide Incentives
Make Offers
Deliver Utility
- Feedback – Post a question that invites people to share their opinion.
- Play the ‘test your knowledge’ game (e.g. short quizzes and questionnaires that encourage a post to go viral)
- Polls – Run polls to gauge how the audience feels, learn more about their views and encourage ongoing engagement with the brand.
- Just ask – Simply post a question (e.g. asking the audience what they think of a new product or range).
Encourage the audience to create content featuring the brand, such as:
- Hashtags – The right hashtag has the ability to go viral and allow like-minded people to bond over the brand.
- Media upload contests – Like in the BMW campaign case study from section 1.6., encourage the audience to create and upload original photos and videos that feature the brand or products.
- Rally reviewers – Ask customers to leave reviews on sites such as Amazon or Yelp.
Everyone likes to get something for free. Incentivise the audience to engage with the brand for the chance to win a prize or perhaps to receive a free sample.
Attract customers and brand interaction with offers such as discounts, membership clubs or free shipping.
Engage with the audience by delivering utility. One way of doing this is through educating the audience using tools such as blog posts, videos, infographics, mini courses and webinars.
Further Reading:
For the full article ‘5 Proven Social Media Engagement Strategies for 2020’, visit the following website:5 Proven Social Media Engagement Strategies for 2022 (hubspot.com)
Customer Service Strategy
It is important to decide how a brand will interact with customers through social media platforms as well as the length of time allowed to respond to a post or comment and whether issues will be resolved publicly or privately.
Properly conducted engagement with customers through social media has the potential to greatly improve the quality of an organisation’s customer service.
A strategy will be required to determine an approach to utilising social media for customer service, which will require establishing guidelines for:
- Answering questions about a product or service
- Responding to positive feedback or a mention about a product
- Responding to negative feedback
Once a social media strategy has been determined, a social media action plan will need to be developed and documented.
This plan should include details on:
- Key responsibilities
- What are the responsibilities of each team member? – Who will sign off on the plan?
- Resourcing requirements
- What resources will be needed to create content and monitor social media platforms effectively, taking into consideration that these can be timeconsuming tasks?
- Where will content be found? Will professional photos of the products or services be needed to effectively promote them?
- Time frames
- When is each element of the plan expected to be delivered?
Posting regularly is important to ensure maximum brand exposure. However, coming up with new, fresh content on a regular basis can be difficult.
Taking the time to develop a social media calendar will mean that content can be developed well in advance of posting it. It will also ensure that important events are not overlooked, and the content aligns with the overall marketing strategy and promotional activities. There are many templates available online for creating a social media plan. The content marketing plan template available on the Business Victoria website is a good place to start:
Just like any business goal, it is important to measure the success of a social media strategy by defining key performance indicators (KPIs). A KPI is a measurable way to determine how a plan or strategy is performing.
For example, the overall objective of a business may be to increase its product sales by 20% during a six-month period. An effective KPI for a social media strategy will always ensure the strategy is well aligned with the objectives and KPIs of the business.
Good KPIs include:
- A measure
- What the organisation wants to achieve, or its desired outcome (e.g. an increase of 1000 new followers)
- A target
- Target time frame in which to complete a goal (e.g. within three months)
- A data source
- The information or data that will be used to measure and track success (e.g. social media platform analytics data)
- Reporting frequency
- The frequency at which relevant team members will report on the KPI (e.g. every two weeks)
For example, if the goal is to build awareness of a brand, you may choose to focus on the number of followers it has and the number of shares for each post. Or, if the goal is to increase sales, you may focus on how to get more people visiting the brand’s website from a social media platform, or how many people sign up to receive emails from the brand.
Most social media platforms provide access to analytics tools for business accounts. These tools allow for sophisticated reporting and data.
The following video demonstrates the tracking and monitoring functionality available through Facebook Insights. Each social media platform has different analytics tools. Make sure you are familiar with the tracking and analytics available for each social media platform that is used.
It is recommended to consider the following when defining the KPIs for a social media strategy:
Awareness, impressions and reach
- Impressions
- The number of times a post appears in someone’s feed or timeline
- Reach
- The potential unique viewers a post could have. This includes the number of people who follow a brand as well as the number of followers of accounts that share a post from the brand.
Engagement
- The number of likes, comments, shares and clicks for a post or profile
- Post engagement rate
- The number of engagements divided by impressions or reach. Higher rates mean the people who have seen the post have found it interesting or attention-grabbing in some way.
- Account mentions
- The number of times people tag a brand without being prompted
Share of voice
The extent to which a brand dominates the online environment compared to its competitors
Conversions and referrals
- Referrals
- How a user can end up on your website (e.g. through clicking a link in an email or a post from Facebook)
- Conversions
- Purchases being made through a brand’s website
- Click-through rate
- How many people click on a brand’s ads or posts (higher rates are better)
Response time
The speed at which a brand responds to customers through social media platforms
When developing a social media strategy, it is important to ensure it aligns with the overall objectives of the organisation as well as the marketing strategy. If a social media strategy differs from the overall objectives, the success of that strategy will be compromised.
For example, a social media strategy that aims to expand a business’ reach to overseas customers may not be aligned with the strategies of a business that seeks to expand its customer base within Australia only. A social media strategy that is misaligned will not assist in achieving the objectives of the business.
Additionally, it is vital to ensure that any KPIs in place are also aligned with the customer service standards of the organisation.
For example, the customer service standards for a business that aims to respond to customer service enquiries within two hours create a very different customer experience in comparison with the customer service standards of competitors who aim to respond within three working days
Further Reading:
The following website contains a number of templates that you may find useful when developing social media strategies.
30 Free Social Media Templates to Save You Hours of Work (hootsuite.com)
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