How to Build the Best Social Media Strategy: Part 2📱
Updated: Feb 20
Welcome back to the second half of our series on developing your own, intentional social media strategy! So far, we’ve talked about understanding your business goals and how to define your target audience.
In this post, we will explore buyer personas and why they matter, which social media channels to post on, and how to determine if your strategy is successful.
WAIT! If you haven’t read part one yet, click here to get caught up. :)
Ok, now that you’re ready, let’s jump in!
Buyer personas help you picture your target market as a real person.
After our last post, you should have a bunch of notes on your audience’s demographics, locations, behaviors, and more. But all those facts can get a bit overwhelming if you don’t have a way to organize them!
Creating a buyer persona allows you to summarize your audience’s characteristics in a model person. Let’s take a look at an example.
Imagine you own a fitness and outdoor sports apparel and gear shop. Now, meet Carrie Johnson (yes, name your persona. It will help you connect with them)!
Carrie’s persona summarizes the characteristics, interests, and lifestyle of a key audience segment for this shop: individuals who enjoy a variety of sports and fitness activities in both their personal and professional lives.
If you have more than one target audience, create a different persona for each segment. But, try not to make more than two or three so that you can focus on serving them well.
So you understand your target audience, but how do you know which channel to post on?
These two areas of your strategy go hand in hand! For example, if your target audience is male college students, you most likely won’t be connecting with them on Facebook.
Another factor to consider is the type of content you’re comfortable creating. If you will primarily be sharing static image or text-based posts, then Instagram and Facebook are better platforms to start with than TikTok.
We love this graphic from WordStream to break down the ages, types of content, and goals of the top seven social media platforms!
So, to make sure we’re all still tracking, you now know your business goals, have a detailed understanding of your target audience(s), and have identified the best platforms for your audience and goals.
We have one last step: How to track your social media content to see if your strategy is actually successful!
Identifying Key Performance Indicators BEFORE you start will allow you to measure your progress on social media.
Likes. Comments. Reach. Followers. Saves. Shares. What matters??? It can be easy to get confused by all the different numbers related to a single social media post. Let’s simplify key performance indicators (KPIs) into three steps:
1.KPIs for social media have three categories, and each of those categories has related social media metrics.
If you need more detail about specific social media metrics, check out this post from Sprout Social!
2. Choose the metrics that align most with your business goals.
You don’t have to track everything, especially in the beginning. Start simple, but be specific and intentional. For example, if one of your business goals is to grow people’s awareness of your restaurant, focus on reaching KPIs. Or, if your primary goal is to sell products on social media, track your ROI KPIs.
3. Track your data monthly and report quarterly against your goals.
Here at Wholesome, we run all of our clients’ data each month. Then, we provide a detailed report every quarter to assess your social media performance and progress toward your business goals.
Whew! You did it! You now have a great foundation for your social media journey. Of course, your strategy can be fluid as you grow and your business goals may change. But stick it out for a few months, and make sure you’re tracking your process with your KPIs!
And, if you need more help getting your social media strategy off the ground, reach out, and we can chat!
Happy strategizing!