How do you use social media for your business success and develop a sustainable strategy? The topic of social media is now on the minds of just about every company. According to Statista, just under half of companies worldwide use social media. However, many companies still integrate social media into their marketing mix without first developing a clear concept. With a well thought-out social media concept, you lay the foundation for successfully addressing your target groups in social media and can produce channel-specific content.

How do you create a successful social media marketing strategy?

We’ll show you how to get to a successful social media marketing strategy in 5 steps.

1. set smart goals

For every good social media strategy, individual key figures should be taken into account in order to be able to optimally measure the effectiveness of the marketing measures. Set realistic and concrete measurable goals. Think about what you want to achieve for your company: Do you want to increase brand awareness, direct visitors to your website or achieve conversions? Set your goals so that you can also measure your results.

2. identify your target group

Create multiple buyer personas for your product or service. This is a fictional person who represents your typical customer. Based on the demographic data, your target group can be worked out. Who is your customer? What content does your ideal customer find really relevant and useful? What can you use to reach them? Thanks to the buyer persona, inbound marketing can be optimized and content can be published that is tailored to the target group.

3. find the right social media platform

Social media platforms are a dime a dozen – but which platform is suitable for your product or service?

YouTube

YouTube is currently the largest video platform and has 2.56 billion monthly active users. The network offers a variety of content from every area: whether beauty and lifestyle, gaming, comedy or information formats. Anyone who can perform here with their products or services should take advantage of the opportunity. In addition, you can increase your reach by placing advertisements. Compared to campaigns on Google, these on YouTube are characterized by a more favorable price.

Facebook

With a total of 1.98 billion active users per day, Facebook is the market leader among social media platforms. The most diverse user groups are represented in this network. With Facebook Ads, companies can increase their reach and reach more potential customers. For B2B companies, the platform is somewhat more difficult to reach the appropriate target group, as most users are private individuals. For the B2C sector, on the other hand, Facebook is a good way to increase the reach for one’s own brand or service and attract new customers.

Instagram

The popular and largest photo network Instagram with 1.28 billion active monthly users has become the most important social media platform for marketing purposes. Unlike other platforms, what matters here is an appealing design and professional preparation of the posts. The targeted use of hashtags can reach the personal target group and increase the reach. Similar to Facebook and YouTube, you can also increase your reach here by means of advertisements and precisely target the target group. Instagram offers many ways to market your product or service: IG TV, store connection, swipe-up button in stories, reels and many more features. Instagram is also the perfect platform for collaborations with influencers.

LinkedIn

With over 850 million members, LinkedIn is the largest professional network in the world and thus also indispensable for many companies. Unlike the other social media channels, it is all about companies highlighting your expertise and service. The structure and content are similar to Facebook: whether images, texts, videos, etc. – there are various possibilities for content ideas. However, it must be clearly defined here whether it is profitable for companies to play on this channel, as it may not be the right target group depending on the focus.

Twitter

The platform is considered a microblogging service and is limited to 280 characters per tweet. You can enrich the texts with photos and videos. The platform is mainly used by politicians and journalists, as well as people interested in politics. Depending on the industry, the platform may also be of interest professionally.

TikTok

The latest social media platform listed here is TikTok. The network can be particularly interesting for companies that specifically address a young target group. The focus here is on creativity, trends and challenges in entertaining videos.

4. create interesting content

Competition on social media platforms is high. You won’t win a digital bouquet with listless content. That’s why the quality as well as the regularity of your posts determines their success above all. Which idea is unique? What concept makes your content stand out? The big goal of content marketing is the virality of content: by means of storytelling, news and entertainment, a company can create interesting and exciting content for the target group. The content must therefore be geared to the emotional level of the target group so that the individual users are also willing to interact with the content.

5. keep track of your KPIs

Your KPIs show you which content generally works, which posts get the most response, and which content might not be as well received. Regularly reviewing these numbers will ensure that you’re constantly optimizing your posts. Your goal is to generate reach and maintain your brand image? Then analyze impressions, follower growth, and interactions. If you want to generate leads, measure conversions.

Successful entry into social media marketing

Don’t waste time. Start working on a social media strategy today and set appropriate goals so that suitable campaigns can be designed. Redirect your classic communication channels to social media channels to be more successful in the digital world.