Building your social media marketing strategy for 2022

Putting together a social media marketing strategy, or fine tuning your current one, may seem daunting due to how much more competitive and complex social media is now, compared to how it used to be.

Your social media marketing strategy should list all of your planned and already existing social media accounts, along with their goals and objectives.

It is important to remember that different platforms have different types of users, and therefore your goals should be unique to the specific platform you are using, along with its users.

In the year 2021, more and more consumers are going online, and it is becoming compulsory to have a strong social media presence if you want to remain competitive.

Especially now, since the outbreak of covid, Which has caused sales to increase dramatically, and to as much as 100% in some industries, it is ever more important to educate yourself on how to successfully strategise your social media marketing.

In addition to this, other businesses are also recognising the change in advertising and marketing trends and as a result, social media has become saturated with competition.

More businesses than ever before are using Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc to market and advertise what they are selling, with all kinds of brands trying to catch the attention of their own target audiences and consumers.

If you want to stand out from these other brands, and effectively grasp the attention of your target audience, then having a solid social media marketing strategy should be your top priority.

However, in reality, breaking things down into a step-by-step strategy will help your brand tackle its goals with a sense of direction.

This article is a guide to creating a social media marketing strategy for 2022, taking into account the changes that have occurred.

A social media strategy will do better if achievable goals are set in place. Not only will it keep you on the right track, but it will also keep your team united and working towards the same goals, creating both long-term vision and short-term motivation.

Ask yourself, what do you want from social media?

Without clear objectives, you will struggle to successfully establish a social media presence.

Your goals will determine your strategy. Do you want to build a community and gain more dedicated followers? Or perhaps you would rather simply increase your revenue? Different advertising techniques will generate different results.

The areas you should be focusing on include:

• Increasing brand awareness
• Increasing customer engagement
• Bringing in traffic to your site
• Generating leads and sales
• Growing your audience

In terms of how you present your goals, they should be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time relevant
  Also known as the S.M.A.R.T framework.

It is important that you keep your goals realistic and tackle the smaller objectives, to begin with. Too many objectives may be distracting or difficult to follow.

Researching your audience is a great way to gain insight into what grasps their interests as well as their buying behaviour.

It is important to do this because unrealistic assumptions and marketing don’t go well together, and knowing who your audience is and what they want is key.

There are tons of tools online that you can use which will help you analyse specific social media platforms and collect demographic data.

For example, according to Hootsuite data, Facebook users click on an average of 12 ads per month, and it’s more women than it is men. You can then use this information to establish a more effective marketing strategy, and for example, run ads more specifically for women.

Social media graphics in 2022 are definitely much different from what they were. Here are some key takeaways:

• Facebook and Youtube are both prime places for ads
• The majority of Instagram and TikTok users are millennials or Gen Z
• There are far greater amounts of women on Pinterest than there are men
• LinkedIn’s user base is well-educated, making it the ideal place for in-depth and industry-specific content that might be too complicated for Facebook or Twitter

It is also important that you do not spread yourself too thin. Instead, focus on networks where your target audience is most active.

By choosing the correct platforms, you have a better chance of generating business leads, as you will be able to engage with the correct audience that will have the most interest in your brand.

It is important not to lose focus on your existing customers in your attempts to gain new ones.

Many brands use a social media dashboard in order to keep tabs on their followers and how they interact on each channel.

For example, Sprout offers an analytics dashboard that displays all of your audience’s demographics. It highlights which social networks are seeing the most activity and help you ensure you spend your time productively and on the right networks.

Sprout also offers a Group Report option where you can view Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest data side-by-side so that you can compare data.

By reviewing this kind of data, you can see which of your campaigns are performing the best and if there are any that you should discontinue.

Your metrics and KPIs (key performance indicators) help you determine the performance of your social media campaigns, and are easy to track. One of the best social media KPIs you can measure is social media engagement, which measures the return of public shares, likes, and comments on a post or campaign.

The best social media strategies are data-driven and focus on the social media metrics that matter.

Here are some examples of the metrics and KPIs you should focus on:

• Likes
• Comments
• Average engagement rate
• Click-through rate
• Cost per click
• Hashtag performance
• Customer testimonials
• Impressions
• Follower count
• Audience growth rate
• Reach
• Potential reach

If you do not keep an eye on your metrics and KPIs, it will be difficult to monitor the success of your campaigns, and you may not even realise when you have reached your objectives.

Another thing important thing to remember, is that different social media platforms will have a different style of usage, and therefore, different KPIs to focus on.

For example, Instagram is great for brand awareness, and LinkedIn is better to drive traffic to your company website.

This one should not be a surprise, your content is the face of your brand!

Great content can help you build trust and connect with your target audience. By following the previous steps, you will have gained insight into what content works for your brand and what doesn’t.

Content can include blogs, images, videos, and graphics, etc. For your content to be of good quality, it needs to be tailored specifically for each platform. Each platform consists of a different format.

But what about your content strategy? Below are some ideas that can help.

• Stick to content themes
• Include stories and time-sensitive posts
• Post-short-form videos
• Post content that shows off your human side
• Conduct a competitive analysis to help your content stand out

By now, you should have a social media strategy in place.

However, it is important that you track your strategy throughout the year because social media is constantly changing, and new trends are always being introduced.

Monitoring the metrics behind your campaigns allows you to keep your social media up to date, rather than doing length sweeps off your entire strategy.

Analysing your results by looking at your insights, website analytics, and sales data gives you valuable insight into which strategies have been most effective and generated the best results.

Did you achieve your objectives? How could you improve? Even the best social media marketers rely on trial and error.

By reviewing your results regularly, you can ask yourself these questions and ensure that you are constantly making the best decisions for your business. If you try a campaign that results in hardly any kind of increase in engagement, then you will not make the mistake of more wasting time and money by repeating it!

A great social media strategy is a constant work in progress that can change with the times and whenever it is necessary.

By constantly reviewing your social media you can ensure that the successful strategies are repeated, and the unsuccessful ones are forgotten!

By carefully considering and carrying out each of these steps, you are ensuring that your efforts are well spent.