In today’s digital age, developing an effective social media strategy is an essential step to growing any business.
Globally, according to Statusbrew, more than 3.8 billion people are using social media this year. This number is projected to reach 4.41 billion by 2025 according to Statista. With this many people using social media, it’s one of the most cost-effective ways to build brand awareness and reach target audiences.
Social media marketing is particularly unique in that businesses can target specific demographics and audiences, catering their strategy to each segment in the market.
The question remains though, how does one create an effective social media strategy in a competitive market?
Here are five tips to designing a successful social media strategy:
- 1. Set goals that align with the goals of your business
It is important to set measurable goals for your social media strategy that aligns with your business or brand. A SWOT analysis is one tool that can be utilized to establish goals. Identifying strengths, weaknesses, areas for opportunity and potential threats for your business creates a snapshot of how to proceed with your social media strategy.
2. Identify and analyze your audience
Understanding your audience or demographic is essential in developing a successful strategy. It is not only important to understand who your audience is, but also what kind of content they will engage with. Identifying your audience includes factors such as:
- Age
- Location
- Educational background
- Industry and profession
- Interests
3. Research the competition
Competition can be identified upon completion of a SWOT analysis. Similar to analyzing your audience, it is also important to analyze your competition. Understanding your competition can identify market trends in your sector. It can also identify areas of opportunity for your business to set market trends.
4. Create captivating content
Establishing goals, identifying your audience and understanding how you differ from the competition positions your brand to develop engaging content. When creating your content, keep these tips in mind:
- Create content that aligns with the goals of your strategy
- Appeals to your audience
- Graphics have a consistent look and copy has a consistent tone
5. Track metrics
Once you begin to publish content, you can begin to track metrics. Metrics measure how you can achieve the goals of your strategy. You can use in-application reports on most social media platforms and scheduling sites such as Facebook or Hootsuite. These tools can measure engagement through post interactions or click-through ratios.
While the above tips will help build the base for your business’ social media strategy, creating one is a process that takes time, skill and education. One way to build a thorough understanding of the process is through a hands-on digital marketing course.
The comprehensive Diploma in Digital Marketing Specialist Co-op program offered at the Toronto School of Management (TSoM) equips students with the skills and knowledge to develop social media and digital advertising campaigns, optimize PPC advertisements, build their copywriting skills, and more.
Through this program, students will learn from industry professionals and gain hands-on experience for in-demand transferrable marketing and social media skills. At the end of the program, students will also receive a co-op placement, which will serve as an opportunity for them to practice what they’ve learned in class in the real-world.
Upon successful completion of the program, students will receive their diploma as well as a Digital Marketing Associate certificate from the Digital Marketing Institute (DMI).
Other career opportunities after this program include becoming a communications officer, digital marketing specialist, content creator and more.
To learn more about this and other programs available at TSoM, visit www.torontosom.ca.