Do you have an effective social media marketing strategy? Or are you still randomly sending articles to an email list or posting on a couple social media platforms simply because everyone else does the same? Have you given much thought to how long you’ve been doing things the same old way despite all the negative press reports these days about social media?

Even if your company has excellent products, services, and a beautiful website with great content. Without a carefully thought out, up-to-date social media marketing strategy that follows today’s trends, your company could be missing out on countless opportunities to attract and engage prospective customers and promote your brand.

The Role of the Social Media Manager

Before moving on to the steps you should follow to build your social media marketing strategy, keep in mind that this strategy should not be confused with the skills and personality traits needed by social media managers to implement these strategies. As the role of social media manager continues to evolve, so too, does the growing rise in interest in this role which is a mix of tangible skills (like copywriting and analytics) and intangible traits (such as curiosity.)

How is Social Media Changing?

Over the past few years, there has been a stagnation in organic growth from social media. Marketers are finding that using social media is not like it used to be even as recently as last year, and are now seeking ways to improve their strategies.

Not only have privacy concerns become a huge issue, but with changes in Facebook’s News Feed, the cleanup of millions of suspicious accounts on Twitter, and the move away from branded content on Instagram, marketers have started to rethink their strategies and to follow the ever-changing trend.

A panel of Forbes Communications Council members suggest that your social media marketing strategy in 2019 should take into account these 14 social media trends:

1. Increasing demand for truly ‘social’ engagement: People want to do business with companies they know, like, and trust.
2. Fading Facebook: Usage and engagement of this platform have dropped significantly.
3. LinkedIn is growing: Although previously underrated, the use of this platform in 2019 is expected to be huge.
4. Instagram stories: With growing popularity and increased engagement, this platform should be seen as essential in your 2019 social media strategy.
5. Interactive Quizzes: Used by marketers to engage consumers and drive sales.
6. Live video: Not being scripted; live video is being seen as a compelling way to communicate and deepen engagement with an audience.
7. Trust-building via social media: Maximizing reach on social media requires more intimacy with followers.
8. Consumers as content creators: Tap into content generated by your customers.
9. Increased inbound customer requests: Expect to see increased volumes of inbound customer requests via social channels.
10. Growth in groups: There is a trend for people to spend more time in group chats in forums relating to brands.
11. Long-form content: It has been found that long-form content drives conversion and SEO when implemented correctly.
12. Voice search: Be prepared for this emerging trend, which is expected to be an integral part of consumers’ hands-free experiences.
13. Influencer marketing: Partner with authentic influencers who endorse your brand.
14. Embrace behind-the-scenes ‘reality’: Let your audience understand what’s going on behind the scenes in your business.“Social media is no longer just a trendy marketing tactic—it’s a crucial one. Today’s consumers turn to social media to find brands they can trust, looking for user testimonials, examples of exceptional customer service, and more.”—Forbes.com

Steps to Build Your Social Media Strategy in 2019

Setting social media goals is a crucial step toward proving (and improving) the value of your social media strategy. Written goals are a way to review and report on your progress, and this significantly increases the chances that you will achieve what you set out to do.

Written goals help you chart a course for improvement and success. They provide you with a tool for you to see how effective your efforts are. They give you purpose and direction, and a means to share them with others.

Let’s Start with a Social Media Audit

Some social media experts position the social media audit as a first goal. However, this is not something you should do just once. Or even once every year. As your social media marketing strategy evolves alongside social media in general, you should keep returning to what you learned with the previous audit. Keep learning and relearning and making ongoing adjustments.

Before you can begin thinking about what you want to achieve with your social media goals, develop a clear understanding of where you stand right now. This means you need to perform a social media audit.

An audit will help you document all your existing social media accounts and programs in one place and get a sense of your current level of performance, your baseline.

Hootsuite, a popular “social media management system,” offers an article that walks you through a social media audit, and provides a useful free template to help track and document everything. This audit means you will review the social networks you are currently using, together with the individual profiles, pinned and most popular posts, and the audience you have with each network

Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

A social media marketing strategy is key to growing your following on social media. As outlined by FitSmallBusiness (which also offers a free social media marketing strategy template), creating a social media strategy starts with the setting of marketing goals, choosing the best networks to use, and measuring your desired results.

There are specific steps that can be taken to develop an effective social media strategy; however, executing it can be a challenge. By documenting your steps or goals and sharing them with others in your organization will streamline the whole process.

Key to social media success is knowing which goals and targets to set for your team.

1. Set Your Social Media Goals
   To set your social media goals, create goals that are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.) Since your business is unique, let your goals guide the rest of your strategy.

Initial, general social media goals to use as a starting point could include the following:

• Increase brand awareness
• Generate new leads
• Drive website traffic
• Increase online sales
• Strengthen customer support
  

2. Determine the Social Media Channels
   Become familiar with social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Snapchat.

• For are a B2B business, focus on LinkedIn
• For a brand which is new to social media, Facebook or Instagram might be the best starting point
• Run a Google search on your competitors and check the social share buttons on their websites

3. Set Up Your Social Media Accounts
   Your social media manager could take a few minutes to sign up for all the initial accounts:

• Facebook: Create a Facebook business page by first creating a personal profile.
• Twitter: Creating an account is as easy as simply choosing a Twitter handle.
• Instagram: You will need to download the Instagram app to your mobile device to set up your account.
• LinkedIn: Start by creating a personal account
• Pinterest: By converting your personal account to a business account, you can later run Pinterest ads.
• YouTube: Since Google owns YouTube, start by creating a personal Google account.
• Snapchat: The Snapchat app will need to be downloaded to your mobile device. Use a handle that will be recognized as your business.

4. Analyze the Competition
   Before starting to post content, take some time to research your competition and analyze their approach. Note the number of followers (or likes) they have, what content is being posted, as well as other metrics such as the volume of likes and comments. Pay attention to how they position their business on social media. This will help you decide to either do something similar or intentionally be different to stand out.
5. Build Your Initial Presence
   Building your initial presence means creating a professional website, filling out your business information, adding images, and creating your first post. In fact, some business analysts even advise creating a month’s worth of blog posts before making your social network aware of your business.
6. Create a Social Media Schedule
   A social media schedule is simply a calendar of content ideas. These help you to post quality content on social media consistently. With social media being all about consistency, ideally, you’ll be dedicating less than twenty minutes each day to social media and to post and interact with your followers.Consider using a marketing calendar tool such as CoSchedule to streamline your posts.
7. Promote Your Social Channels
   Promoting your social media channels will get the word out so that more people will follow you. Doing this is the best way to grow your following so that all your posts are seen by as many people as possible.
8. Measure Your Results
   Your results will show how many followers you have attracted, and confirm just how well your social media efforts are paying off. Not only will you be able to see the gain in your followers, but also how much traffic is being attracted by your website, as well as the level of engagement your posts are receiving. Each of the major social media networks let you have access to your metrics through their analytics platforms.
9. Optimize for the Best Performance
   Once you have some performance metrics on hand, you should be better equipped to make some improvements to your posting schedule and optimize it all for the best performance.
10. Run Promotions for Your Products and Services
    After your initial following has been established, further social media promotions are a great way to get your products and services in front of an even larger audience and generate sales.
11. Run Ads on Social Media
    All the major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, and YouTube have social advertising features.Therefore these are all designed to help you grow your reach, audience size, and sales potential. While you don’t have to run social media advertising for your business, social media ads are a great way to extend your reach. For your product or service, revisit the successful organic promotions you’ve run in the past and figure out ways to reuse successful elements of each in future campaigns.

The Bottom Line to Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Regardless of your results, creating and maintaining a social media marketing strategy is always intimidating. Keep in mind that it’s not possible to do everything all at once. Take the time to create a plan with clear goals as mapped out above, keep to a consistent content schedule, and carry out a regular analysis. By doing this, you’ll develop an engaged audience that’s always eager to purchase your products and services.