Creating social media strategies can be overwhelming – especially when launching a new brand or building an online presence from scratch.
I remember looking at all the channels, tools, and features and thinking, “How am I going to integrate all of this into a marketing strategy?” And if you don’t have a dedicated social media team, it becomes even more difficult.
But here’s what I learned: Success online comes down to having a strategy that is simple, realistic, and works with the resources available.
I recently sat down with three senior social media experts to review HubSpot’s 2024 State of Social Media Report. Together we explored how you can develop a strategy that drives traffic and delivers real ROI for your brand.
What is a social media strategy?
A social media strategy is an overview of the content your company will publish, the responsibilities of your social media team, and the social media channels you will use to promote your company. It includes social media goals that complement your company’s overall digital marketing strategy.
Think of your social media strategy as the master plan for how you create, publish, and engage with your social media content.
It includes social content guidelines, publishing cadence, social media marketing campaigns, target audience and engagement strategy that promote your business and brand.
To track and analyze your social media marketing performance, HubSpot’s marketing analytics and dashboard software can help you gain insights, including the customer lifecycle.
Many companies use social media to connect with customers, provide support, promote new products and features, and promote special offers.
Why you need a social media strategy
According to our latest State of Social Media Report, the biggest challenges facing social media marketers are:
- Create engaging content
- Generate leads
- Reach target groups
While these are some of the most difficult challenges, they are also the points you should think about the most when creating an effective plan.
Ultimately, well-thought-out social media strategies allow you to set goals and guardrails, track performance, and optimize your benchmarks over time.
“I think one of the biggest challenges for social media marketers is saturation and competition. There is so much content on social media that it is sometimes difficult to stand out from the crowd.
A solid strategy that understands that the audience includes strong copy and unique content can help cut through the noise,” he says Ellie NashSocial Community Manager Kurago.
Without a starting point, you can’t measure what’s working and how to shift your activities to achieve your goals.
A social media strategy also helps you set expectations for broader team participation and make everyone aware of what they can and can’t do on your social networks.
How to create a social media strategy
- Define your target group.
- Integrate e-commerce.
- Optimize your social channels for search.
- Focus on a few key channels.
- Create engaging content tailored to each platform.
- Use your content for other purposes.
- Create a customer service plan.
- Develop a publishing plan to guide you.
- Speak WITH and not with your followers.
- Measure your results.
- Adjust your tactics as needed.
1. Define your target group.
If you haven’t already identified and documented your buyer personas, start by defining the key demographics of the target audience you want to reach – such as age, gender, profession, income, hobbies and interests.
To reach your audience without annoying them, you first need to understand what they want and why.
What is their motivation?
Do social media users visit these apps to learn, explore, shop, or just have a good time?
In our latest In the State of Consumer Trends survey, we asked over 500 general consumers to choose the top three reasons they use social media.
While 65% actually use it socially to stay in touch with friends, 53% just want to be entertained, while 50% want to learn new things. Unfortunately, 28% say they prefer to use social media to find out about new products or brands.
The good news?
Later in the survey, when we asked consumers how they prefer to research and learn about brands and products, it was a huge surprise 41% said they enjoy doing this on social media channels (a slight increase from a similar survey we conducted six months earlier).
During the generation
As you may be able to tell from our data above, your target audience plays a role in how successful the right strategy will be. And as you become more responsive to them, you can create targeted advertising that speaks to the specific needs of your ideal consumer.
For example, the sponsored post below from Monday.coma project management platform, highlights the flexibility and workflow customization feature of the platform.
The post is aimed at business owners and project managers who may feel limited by other project management software.
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What does this mean for you?
Consider your ideal consumer’s challenges and the problems they solve every day. Focus on no more than four types of people that represent most of your buyers. Don’t get hung up on exceptions or outliers or you’ll never get started.
Once you start Create content For your audience, prioritize engaging your audience at all levels.
Pay close attention to any questions or comments your audience posts. And speak to them quickly, because this interaction can make the difference between the success or failure of a conversion or purchase.
Consumers want to feel like they are part of a community when they are on your social media pages. More than one in five social media users joined or participated in an online community in the last year.
Speaking of communities, creating social media groups is a smart move to attract, retain, and engage audiences, and 90% of marketers agree.
Here’s why:
- Groups help people get involved.
- Followers can learn from each other.
- Your brand becomes a connector – something like a helpful friend.
- Communities feel more comfortable to chat with than Pages.
In 2020, HubSpot created a small Facebook group called From marketer to marketer with 4.9k followers. It’s not as big as our Facebook page, but the conversions prove it’s worth it.
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💡 Pro tip: To reach the right audience, use social listening tools. These tools check social media for keywords, assess whether the talk is positive or negative, and provide you with reports. I often use this information to create buyer personas for better audience targeting.
2. Integrate e-commerce.
Social media is no longer just about discovering products, but is also becoming a place to buy them. People love the convenience of shopping directly in the app, where they see something they like for the first time.
In fact, a quarter of social media marketers already say that social shopping tools are more effective than traditional e-commerce sites. And looking ahead, 80% of them believe that consumers will eventually shop more in apps than on branded websites or through third-party platforms.
By mid-2023, 25% of users aged 18 to 44 had already purchased something via social media. I bet that number will increase in 2024.
And this doesn’t just happen in one part of the world. If we look at how this trend is playing out globally, we see that several other countries have already made social media shopping the norm.
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For example, check out this comparison of data from the UK, China and the US:
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So what’s the takeaway?
If you sell products, social media should be an important part of your eCommerce strategy in 2024. It doesn’t matter where you are. Social selling is a big deal – so it’s time to take it seriously.
Most platforms offer built-in eCommerce features like Shoppable Posts, and almost half (47%) of social media marketers already sell directly in apps.
The most popular social selling tools for marketers are:
- Instagram Shops and Instagram Live Shopping (High ROI)
- Facebook Shops (Average ROI)
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(Psst: Need help setting up a Facebook page for your business? We’re here for you.)
If you need inspiration for incorporating eCommerce into your social media strategy, get inspired here Sephora.
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Whenever the beauty brand publishes a product image, it includes a product tag that links directly to the image Shopping site. It works seamlessly – followers can make a purchase without ever leaving the app.
The key to social selling success is trust. Although Sephora has an established reputation, you can build trust by sharing customer reviews, user-generated content (UGC), and product information.
💡 Pro tip: Use image, video, and carousel ads for brand awareness to highlight store visits, ad impressions, and engagement. To increase sales, select Product, Collection, or Shopping ads to encourage direct purchases and product page visits.
3. Optimize your social channels for search.
Social search is on the rise.
As more people turn to social networks instead of search engines for their searches, 89% of social media marketers agree that social search is important to their overall social media strategies in 2023.
Nearly 24% of consumers ages 18 to 54 use social media first to research brands.
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For marketers, this means your social channels need to be optimized for search. Prioritize social SEO if you want your social channels to appear in results when your audience searches for your brand.
Similar to optimizing for search engines like Google, you can optimize your social presence.
Here’s how:
- Include relevant keywords and hashtags in your posts and bios.
- Make sure your username is easy to find.
- Make sure your username is consistent across all accounts.
When adding alt text, avoid keyword stuffing, they say Annie May HodgeDirector and founder of Girl Power Marketing.
“This function describes the image on a page for the visually impaired. Therefore, it is important that you describe the image accurately. By doing this, you also provide additional context to the social platform, which in turn can lead to better visibility of your content in search results,” says Hodge.
According to this, over 30% of US desktop searches on Google contain video carousels and video results Semrush sensor.
For example, I searched for “best gaming laptops in 2024” and the second result was a YouTube video. Therefore, it is worth considering being active on YouTube to promote your brand.
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💡 Pro tip: You don’t have to shoot an hour-long video. Even short videos – think YouTube Shorts – can help you rank higher in the SERP. You can use UGC videos and testimonials for this purpose.
4. Focus on a few key social channels.
Most small businesses or social media teams don’t have the bandwidth to build and maintain a quality social media presence on every single channel. And get to know the special characteristics of each individual? Completely overwhelming.
That’s why it makes sense to focus on the platforms that bring the best ROI. For many brands, that’s Instagram.
Instagram has proven to be the best source of ROI, engagement, and quality leads. Additionally, 23% of marketers believe Instagram offers brands the most potential to grow their audience in 2023.
Additionally, adding an Instagram feed to your website keeps things fresh and can even encourage more people to buy – social media content has been proven to increase conversions by up to 29%.
If you are not tech savvy, there is no need to worry. With tools like Flockler, you can easily embed your Instagram feed and make your website more dynamic. Check out the simple guide How to embed an Instagram feed on a website.
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Brands also need to be strategic about where they appear.
“The platform can say a lot about the brand itself. “As more consumers become more conscious about how they spend their money and whether companies’ ideals align with theirs, this will become increasingly important for brands in the long run,” he says Tameka BazileSocial media strategy manager TIME.
If you want to build a strong social media strategy from scratch, start small.
If you’re just starting out, don’t overwhelm yourself. Research where your target group is. For example, if you want to target business professionals, LinkedIn may be a better fit than Instagram.
According to Bazile, brands should also consider the following when expanding across multiple platforms:
- Means. “Does your social media team have enough members and budget to successfully manage multiple accounts?” Bazile asks.
- Consumer Access. “Are their ideal customers being found on the platforms they want to expand on?” she says.
I recently read insightful expert opinions on this LinkedIn article about choosing the right social media platform.
Amidst all the chatter, Roel Timmermans‘ comment caught my attention:
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Or as Annie May Hodge says: “You don’t have to be on every single social media platform, period – for most companies, being on platforms where your audience isn’t active is a waste of time and resources.”
When creating your strategy, Hodge says, “You would have paid attention to where your audience is, what your competitors are doing, and what you want to achieve with social media – all of which will help you figure out which social media channels to use. that you should focus on.”
💡 Pro tip: Check where your competitors are most active and what type of content they publish. You’ll see what works and what doesn’t and how engaged the audience is. Don’t copy it – just use this information to make smart decisions about your strategy.
5. Create engaging content tailored to each platform.
As mentioned earlier, each social media platform has its own vibe.
The way people engage, the type of content they expect – everything is different. So if you want your posts to land, you need to adapt your content to the style and tone of each platform.
For example:
- LinkedIn is all about professional, insightful posts
- Instagram is designed for eye-catching images and quick messages
- TikTok is all about creativity and driving trends
- Twitter loves quick, real-time updates
When done right, content tailored to the platform builds trust and increases engagement.
Take Instagram, where you should focus on crisp images or short videos with meaningful captions. On LinkedIn, you want to tap into thought leadership and industry expertise. And for TikTok, it’s humor, challenges, or funny behind-the-scenes moments that humanize your brand.
Wendy’s is a great example of this.
The brand’s Twitter game is sharp and sarcastic – perfect for the fast-paced nature of the platform.
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But on Instagram, Wendy switches gears with sophisticated posts featuring new menu items and vibrant photos.
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💡 Pro tip: Instagram stories and TikTok challenges are perfect for casual, everyday content. Save the deep dives for YouTube and LinkedIn, where people look for deeper insights.
6. Repurpose your content.
Why should you worry about creating different content for each platform?
Keep it simple: repurpose the same great content and use it in different places – within reason, of course.
According to our research, most marketers repurpose content in some way, shape or form, while 19% consider this to be one of their key strategies. Meanwhile, 40% plan to invest more in repurposing content in 2024.
That makes sense. By recycling content you can:
- Get your message to more people on different platforms.
- Save time by using what you already have instead of starting from scratch.
- Stay visible in search engines by updating and reusing content.
- Cater to your audience’s preferences with different formats.
- Make your content last longer by updating timeless pieces.
- Improve your strategy by examining how your content performs on different channels.
At HubSpot, we love repurposing content – from simple LinkedIn posts like this…
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… to the hilarious TikTok video:
But a smart tip: don’t rely on it for every single campaign.
Although most marketers do this, only 7% told us it brings them significant ROI compared to more platform-tailored content.
If you’re short on time or trying a new platform that’s similar to what you’re already using, make small adjustments to optimize content across channels. I would say it’s worth experimenting as long as you deliver what your audience wants.
Just be careful not to spam them with the same content over and over again – otherwise you’ll quickly lose their attention.
💡 Pro tip: Looking for a creative content idea that feels more personal than repurposed? Create memorable quote images from customer thoughts, share email insights on X or LinkedIn, and create quick videos from podcasts – things like that people love.
7. Create a customer service plan.
When putting together your social media strategy, consider how you will use your channels for customer service.
Social media is so ingrained in our daily lives that it’s no surprise that people use these platforms for everything from branding to customer service.
According to our State of Social Media and Consumer Trends study, one in five social media users contacts a brand via social DMs each quarter for customer service.
43% of marketers use customer service representatives, 41% rely on platform managers, and 13% use automated tools like chatbots.
Whether you create a separate account for customer service or set up an auto-reply when someone DMs you on Instagram, you should have a plan for how you will handle customer support via social media.
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You can add work hours in the support page bio so people know when to expect help. Consider what Twitch did on his X profile:
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Now let’s talk a little about the importance of good customer service on social media.
According to Khoros Research:
- 42% were disappointed, 43% were dissatisfied and 41% said they were upset about poor customer support.
- 67% shared bad experiences and 65% switched to another brand.
- 43% are more likely to buy from a brand after good customer service.
- 83% feel more loyal to brands that resolve their complaints.
- 73% of brands expect more inbound channels and 53% expect more outbound channels in the next one to two years.
💡 Pro tip: In addition to clearly stating working hours, let customers know the expected response time and inform them of faster alternative resources if available.
8. Develop a publishing plan to guide you.
Social media is not an exact science and definitely does not work the same for every company or industry.
To make it work for you, create a clear publishing plan that helps your team stay consistent with content.
HubSpot offers some great ones Social media tools and templates that will help you plan your content and build a solid publishing schedule and social media calendar.
One method that I have found effective comes from Tameka Bazile, who presented a nice method for categorizing social media content:
Here’s how she categorizes it:
- Evergreen engagement content.
- Evergreen advertising content.
- Specific campaign content.
- Recurring communication content.
“By separating content into these areas, social media teams can maintain regular online presences while breaking down content data into easily trackable chunks,” she says.
Set realistic goals for how often you post and engage, and stick to the posting schedule you create. Consistency matters!
💡 Pro tip: Choose platforms that allow for easy editing and content management within your team. This ensures smooth collaboration and calendar updates.
9. Speak WITH and not with your followers.
In our latest consumer trends study, 41% of consumers said the most memorable aspect of a brand or company’s social or online posts is their trustworthiness.
Friendly brands gain more followers (and hearts). So skip the self-promotion overload. Instead, participate in conversations and respond authentically to comments.
People love it when you chat with them and don’t just throw information at them. It makes them feel special and creates a real affection for your brand.
And no, you don’t have to sound particularly professional. Casual conversations work even better on social media. Just take an example from McDonald’s:
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Personally, I can’t get enough of BMW and its fantastic relationship with fans and followers. They always try to respond to every comment on social media:
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And here’s something interesting to remember: Very few people, less than one percentInteract with brand posts.
Here are the platform breakdowns.
- Facebook: 0.09%.
- Instagram: 1.22%.
- X: 0.045%.
So when you receive a comment, find the right way to interact and show that you care.
Don’t just ghost and ignore them. These comments push your post higher in algorithms and make it more visible.
💡 Pro tip: Never delete negative comments unless they are extremely offensive or inappropriate. Instead, use it as an opportunity for constructive engagement and improvement.
10. Measure your results.
It’s hard to know what to focus on when you don’t have goals, a roadmap, or a clear brand strategy. You end up getting lost in the noise of social media and not knowing what works or what to prioritize.
As Bazile says, “Without goals, a product roadmap, or even a complete brand strategy, social media managers will struggle to know what to prioritize on social, what metrics to measure to convey progress, and what type of content or social presence is ideal for the brand.”
There is a lot of you may Track on social media with the right Toolsbut let’s not let ourselves be overwhelmed.
Start with the basics. For example, how much traffic do your social channels drive to your website or blog?
Once you have that under control, use tools like Facebook’s Page Insights, Insights into Instagram accountsAnd LinkedIn visitor analysis to identify trends in engagement.
Look for patterns in which topics or keywords get the most attention.
Once you know what your average traffic and post performance looks like, it’s time to set some goals.
Choose metrics that are simple and easy to track – otherwise you’ll quickly lose motivation. Things like overall engagement, traffic to your website, and social earnings are a good place to start.
“In my opinion, impressions are one of the most valuable indicators,” says Nash. “Impressions measure the number of times a piece of content appears on users’ screens and helps evaluate the effectiveness of your content strategy in terms of exposure and brand awareness.”
💡 Pro tip: Don’t just focus on platform numbers. Also track social sentiment. See if people express positive or negative feelings toward you in online conversations. It requires a little manual work, but it’s worth it. Check back regularly for better insights.
11. Adjust your tactics as needed.
Social media doesn’t work overnight.
It takes time to build a following, stabilize your brand, and see the results of your efforts. So experiment to find the right combination of channels, content and messaging that works for your audience.
We can pick up some cool tricks Victoria’s Secret in this regard.
The company has moved from just using professional photos and videos to more informal content. Now VS’s Insta feed also includes UGC and interviews with random people on the street and in their stores.
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Victoria’s Secret proves that even as a high-end brand, you don’t lose anything when you include everyday people.
Actually, you win.
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More followers. More commitment. More exposure.
Track changes in your post views, audience demographics, and post interactions and make changes as needed.
Over time, you can adjust your publishing schedule, content, and personas based on the information you collect, helping you refine your strategy and achieve more consistent results.
I get it: trying new things may seem a bit daring, but sometimes it’s just necessary to “survive.”
For example, try to use funny content whenever possible.
In our 2023 survey of over a thousand global social media marketers, 66% said funny content works best, followed by likeable (63%) and trending (59%) content. While 45% only talk about their brand values, the key is to use humor to make the biggest impact.
Don’t you think humor can pay the bills? A third, or 34%, of Consumer Trends respondents also said funny content is what they remember most.
I asked Hodge about a time when a change in tactics improved social media results. She recalls that Girl Power Marketing stopped growing on social media in early 2023 and lost engagement.
“It wasn’t until I sat down and rethought my strategy that I realized I was missing something, and that was humanization,” Hodge says. “Why should people trust my thoughts, opinions and advice if they have no idea who is behind GPM or what its mission is?”
Hodge shares that she has begun to show up more consciously. She created content that showed more of herself, her personality, and GPM’s mission.
“And a year later, GPM has grown to a community of over 180,000 people – all because I changed tactics that were no longer working,” says Hodge.
💡 Pro tip: Adapt your content to seasonal trends and holidays. This helps keep your brand messages current and relatable. And most importantly: people love it.
Keep up with social media strategies
These tips will increase your ROI now, but make sure you’re prepared for the inevitable changes as new tools, channels, and trends emerge.
To stay on top of things without feeling overwhelmed, I recommend following research like our State of Social Media Report. You can also visit our blog to get real, actionable insights into the trends and strategies you need to keep an eye on.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in February 2016 and has been updated for completeness.
