How to develop an SMM strategy: step-by-step instructions

What is included in an SMM strategy?

Social media strategy involves strategic and tactical decisions about what a brand should do on social media to achieve its goals. The strategy is implemented to achieve such business goals as sales, subscriptions, website traffic, consumer engagement and creating a community of loyal customers.

How to develop an SMM strategy?

Step 1. Immersion

Specify the goals of brand promotion in social networks.

The goal answers the question “why are we doing this?” Ideally, it follows the SMART model that stands for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable,Relevant and Time-bounded.

What’s the point? During promotion, we compare actions with the goal and answer whether they help achieve it.

Study the current brand concept: visuals and creatives.

It will give us a clear understanding of how the brand or product is positioned.

Analyze account management.

It is necessary to study how the account has been maintained until now, what promotion methods were used and what results this led to. You can use SWOT analysis: highlighting strengths and weaknesses, identifying opportunities and threats.

What will it give? Let’s avoid the “rake” and see the most promising development paths and growth points.

Step 2. Competitor’s analysis

Analyze engagement, likes, comments, number of subscribers, volume of content produced.

We should have an understanding of the averages for a specific niche and the numbers to strive for.

Conduct an audit of competitors’ content and promotion tools: mechanics, visual presentation, ToV, strengths and weaknesses, advertising creatives, integrations.

Highlight best practices: what works and what doesn’t. Look for trends in the niche and on the international market. This will help develop proposals and select the optimal tools.

Step 3. Study the target audience

Conduct a general study of the target audience, analyze the statistics of content consumption in the niche. It will help you set objective KPIs.

Try to classify the audience, describe each segment, highlight subsegments and their characteristics.

Many entrepreneurs, when asked who their target audience is, answer “everyone.” In fact, this means no one. The same goes for the phrase “women over 30.” There are women over 30 - housewives and mothers, and they need one thing, and there are women over 30 - building their own business, and they have completely different pains.

Remember that the more accurate advertising campaigns you set, the quicker you’ll find and reach the people you need.

Create a client portrait: describe in detail the most prominent representative of the segment. It allows you to adapt your offer to the characteristics of the target audience.

Prepare a brand response - important criteria that should be emphasized when interacting with each audience segment.

A clear and compelling brand message will be the best way to attract customers. What will it give? A form of effective communication with the audience.

Step 4. Content

Choose tactics for using social networks, presence on the platforms and promotion tools.

It happens that there is no target audience of a brand on a particular social network or it is not active there, which means there is no point in spending resources on this platform. It may be the other way around: there is a social network where your target audience is definitely present, but there are no competitors yet, which means you can safely enter and promote yourself on this site.

Select suitable promotion channels and tools, as well as proper allocation of resources.

Think over a creative concept: idea, core values, a single message that conveys the most important characteristics of the brand to the audience.

People buy not only because of the rational benefits of a product, but also based on emotions. If there are two goods with identical properties, and a person is close to the values of only one of the producers, the choice will be obvious.

What will it give? Audience loyalty, associative connection of the product with the brand and its message.

Develop a visual concept: a moodboard, a proposal for the visual design of social networks, general principles for the design of materials for social networks.

It provides the ability to broadcast the emotional components of not only the product itself, but also the entire ecosystem associated with its consumption.

Develop a content strategy and rubricator in accordance with the concept.

It will help to structure information for both the SMM specialist and subscribers and prepare your high quality plan and interesting materials in advance.

Develop your brand’s Tone of Voice

It will allow you to find contact with the audience, speaking “the same language” with them.

Step 5. Direct promotion

Think through promotion hypotheses

Creating and testing hypotheses is about finding a strong idea. Testing hypotheses will allow you to identify effectiv mechanics and tools faster and cheaper, without wasting your budget on non-working options.

Implementing it will save you money and time.

Think about setting up targeted advertising: social networks used for targeting, determining formats and basic promotion settings, calculating forecasts.

It will give you the ability to rationally use your marketing budget and get maximum benefit from advertising campaigns.

Look for other advertising channels and formats:

Work with bloggers: select channels and opinion leaders, suggestions on the format of working with them

Think of Integrations, collaborations with other accounts, special projects, communities, promoted live broadcasts and other mechanics

In order to get a comprehensive promotion and use of all possible channels and formats suitable for the brand.

We draw up a media plan: purchase volumes, budget distribution across channels.

A media plan is a table for a certain period and contains data on placement channels, budget, and predicted results of an advertising campaign.

What will it give? It will help you plan promotional actions, correctly allocate the budget, and evaluate the effectiveness of advertising.

We offer KPIs: ways to evaluate the effectiveness of using each channel (growth of subscribers, increased involvement, reach, number of applications, etc.). What will it give? We will be able to measure the degree of achievement of goals.

A well-thought-out and detailed SMM strategy is already 50% of your company’s success on social networks. 

To develop a high-quality strategy, you need to be a savvy specialist. And here sol.agency is happy to come to your aid. Contact us and we will help you develop an SMM strategy and make your business profitable through social media marketing.