[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/6-simple-steps-to-a-kick-ass-social-media-strategy\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/6-simple-steps-to-a-kick-ass-social-media-strategy\/","headline":"6 Simple Steps to a Kick-Ass Social Media Strategy","name":"6 Simple Steps to a Kick-Ass Social Media Strategy","description":"  Social media is a leading instrument for marketing. As large companies have embraced social media by adopting its usage across \u00a0all of its divisions, it was only a matter of time that small businesses realized the importance of social media in the marketing \u00a0environment. It has indeed become a core to business success, escalating … Continue reading 6 Simple Steps to a Kick-Ass Social Media Strategy<\/span><\/a>","datePublished":"2015-10-28","dateModified":"2017-06-23","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/author\/dave-burnett\/#Person","name":"Dave Burnett","url":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/author\/dave-burnett\/","identifier":5,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7d9ce54bf7884db06c868d4c3d9f401d81cecc940d6403409642a6a34d06caa8?s=96&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7d9ce54bf7884db06c868d4c3d9f401d81cecc940d6403409642a6a34d06caa8?s=96&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"AOK Marketing","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/AOK-Marketing-Logo.png","url":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/AOK-Marketing-Logo.png","width":126,"height":53}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/social-media-image.jpg","url":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/social-media-image.jpg","height":448,"width":700},"url":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/6-simple-steps-to-a-kick-ass-social-media-strategy\/","about":["Content Marketing","Facebook","Google Plus","Instagram","LinkedIn","Online Marketing Essentials","Pinterest","Social Media","Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Content Marketing"],"wordCount":1823,"keywords":["build audience","Social Media","Social Media Marketing","social media strategy"],"articleBody":" Social media is a leading instrument for marketing. As large companies have embraced social media by adopting its usage across \u00a0all of its divisions, it was only a matter of time that small businesses realized the importance of social media in the marketing \u00a0environment. It has indeed become a core to business success, escalating sales, soaring profits and above all to the marketing \u00a0arena.Thus, social media is truly a very strong and influential tool which provides the platform to promote and voice your brand. \u00a0However, social media was not always taken this seriously by marketers. When, social media was first incepted, the marketing \u00a0directors used to toss off the management of social media to the junior employees so that they could focus on \u2018more important\u2019 \u00a0things. However, this is not the case anymore. Social media marketing is much more complex now and needs to be handled \u00a0properly and shown its due regard.\u00a0Apart from social media network being much more intricate and refined today, the audience is also quite mature and wise than \u00a0ever. Social media is no longer a standalone domain for marketing agents; rather it needs to be blended with the rest of your \u00a0marketing approach, in order to avoid repercussions and ensure a winning strategy.\u00a0If you still take social media marketing lightly, then it’s time for you to rethink your strategy. Every business that wishes to \u00a0succeed needs to have a compelling social media presence which is effective and contributes to the greater good of your business. \u00a0Here are 6 simple steps to set you on the road to create and plan an impressive social media strategy.Spell out what makes your company distinctive from the rest in the industryHaving a unique and distinctive quality to your company and the product you offer is extremely important. Sounds familiar? That\u2019s right, you probably have heard about the Unique selling proposition (USP) in your basic Business Management 101 lecture. Every business owner and marketing director is aware of the importance of having a distinct quality that sets them apart from their competitors. But, not everyone is able to figure it out.\u00a0Ask your management team the following questions which will help you understand the reasons that give you an edge over the \u00a0competition.\u00a0Are you aware why your customers come back to you?\u00a0Is it because your product pricing is low?\u00a0Is your marketing strategy phenomenal?\u00a0Or perhaps your competitors suck?\u00a0Discovering answers to these and various other questions is important in order to identify what your company is doing better \u00a0than the others in the industry. Keep in mind though, that whatever USP you have cannot be adopted and replicated by your \u00a0competitors, otherwise it will entirely negate its value.\u00a0Thus, figuring out your distinct qualities and then spelling it out to your customers is central to any business strategy, and \u00a0consequently the first step to an effective social media strategy. After all it is a building block on which the rest of your \u00a0company\u2019s structure and strength rests upon.Make sure that your culture is compatible and supportive of social media\u00a0Not all businesses have the culture, company culture as well as social culture that support social media. Already, having to adapt \u00a0to social media strategies is a tough and bumpy ride, but if the culture is incompatible and does not back your social media \u00a0strategy then it is bound for a failure.Irrespective of the fact that you have the required budget, ample content and the necessary motivation level \u2013 it is certainly not \u00a0sufficient enough to make your social media strategy a winner. Even though you can implement your social media strategy, it is \u00a0not going to continue to survive if the culture is inconsistent.Thus, it is an important step to prepare and modify your company\u2019s culture into something that is supportive and allows the \u00a0social media strategies to thrive and flourish. Whether you post online on the company\u2019s Facebook page, twitter account or the \u00a0blogs, you are likely to face as much or even more negative criticism and abuse as you get positive comments.You can ensure that social media fits in your company culture by doing the following:Funnel the social media platforms that fit your company practices.Educate and train your employees on the right usage of social media channels like Facebook, twitter and other forums like \u00a0Amazon, Quora.Set clear goals for your social media strategies like entertaining and informing potential customers.Analyze your customers and competitorsPerhaps the central point of all business strategies, analyzing and studying your competitors is a focal point for your social media \u00a0strategy as well. This will help determine the social media channel that you ought to use for substantial and far reaching results.For your social media strategy to be effective and successful, it is important that you target the right audience. Finding out which \u00a0social media site is frequented by them and what type of posts or content do they respond to can be extremely beneficial. This \u00a0can be done by studying your current and potential customers by surveying and observing previous trends that led to \u00a0considerable traffic to your profile page, as well as comments and shares to your posts. \u00a0Their demographic and psychological \u00a0characteristics should also be accounted for.Competitors are also a major component in your social media strategy. Since your competitors are in the same industry as you \u00a0and are targeting the same audience, they provide you with a really good opportunity to learn from their success and failure. By \u00a0closely studying your competition and their strategies like which social medium they are using, you can assess if they are \u00a0working and follow suit with some modification. On the other hand if their social media strategies fail, you can take steps to \u00a0avoid them.After you have studied your competition and prospective customers closely, the next step is to devise a strategy that makes your \u00a0business or company to stand out.Devise a content strategySince now that you get the idea on how and what your company\u2019s current and prospective customers will find appealing, it is \u00a0time that you come up with a content strategy and the social media channel that you are going to use to post that content.Content strategy consists of the message you are to develop and how and when to post it. Your content should be such that it is \u00a0meaningful and adds value. Many marketing directors claim to have created superb content, but what they often forget is that \u00a0audience prefers a personalized content which tends to humanize your brand in the audience\u2019s eyes.Apart from written content like blogs, content also includes video, podcasts etc. Whichever type of content you go for, visuals, \u00a0satire and humor are key to terrific content. Make sure that your content is readable, understandable as well as shareable.Content strategy is also about how frequently you tweet or update Facebook status. Figuring out the time you ought to post and \u00a0how often is extremely important. There is no predetermined number of posts for a day that you can follow as it depends on the \u00a0nature of business and its targeted audience. However a company should at least post once a day on its Facebook and twitter \u00a0pages and have a regular stream of blogs on its webpage. Consistency is the key!Choose an appropriate channel\u00a0Having a content strategy is not enough. Your next step to a successful social media strategy is to choose the appropriate social \u00a0media channel to air your content. Once you have decided the \u2018when\u2019 and \u2018how often\u2019, it is time to decide where you ought to \u00a0publish or post your content.\u00a0There are so many social media platforms available today such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Tumblr and so \u00a0on and so forth. Choosing the right platform could be quite daunting and challenging. Usually, companies prefer to build their s \u00a0social media presence where their targeted customers are. After all, the primary objective of social media strategy is to increase \u00a0their visibility and reach to potential customers and current customers alike.\u00a0However, companies can choose different strategies as well. For instance they can choose a channel which is expected to have a \u00a0boost in its growth in the near future like Pinterest.\u00a0Prior to selecting a particular channel for your social media strategy, make sure that you are aware of its usage. Your selected c \u00a0channel should be such that it further boasts your strength, not something that backfires. You don\u2019t have to stick to one social \u00a0media platform; you are allowed to use multiple platforms as long as they are in line with your set goals and deliver success. Finally, execute your strategy\u00a0The final step for your social media strategy is to implement it and put it into practice. Before moving forward, let us recap the \u00a0first 5 steps.\u00a0Firstly, compared to any other business strategy, you need to develop and identify what makes your business stands out from the \u00a0rest. Then one needs to take steps so that their company culture is consistent to social media transformation, followed by \u00a0studying the customers and competitors. After these three steps, marketing analytics should define their content strategy and \u00a0choose the most fitting social media platform to upload that content.\u00a0But, social media strategy doesn\u2019t end here. Since there are continued innovations in the online environment, it is only natural \u00a0that businesses continue to revise and make alterations to their strategies accordingly. Furthermore, marketing analytics shall \u00a0measure their success through social media monitoring with respect to how they envision success. Frequent reports and \u00a0statistics of social media activities should be produced and crosschecked with your initial expectations and goals. These reports \u00a0will guide you if your social media strategy is found lacking in some way.\u00a0Execution of the strategy involves the blend of all of the steps mentioned. It is relatively easy to plan the strategy and make the \u00a0list on paper, but actually implementing is the real work.\u00a0During the past few years, social media has seen an increased growth in its popularity among both, users and businesses. Thus, it \u00a0is only practical to develop a successful social media strategy.\u00a0A successful social media strategy can have quite an impact on your business. The real challenge faced by marketers is that social \u00a0media is constantly evolving. Keeping up with the changes and constantly adapting to them can be difficult. Adapting to a social \u00a0media strategy requires major changes to be made across all the divisions of the business. It needs to be well integrated with all \u00a0the other strategies and not operated as standalone.\u00a0One should keep in mind that social media strategy varies for each and every business, company and organization. You cannot \u00a0replicate another business\u2019s strategy and implement it. Customers are different, products vary, and company values are distinct. "},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"6 Simple Steps to a Kick-Ass Social Media Strategy","item":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/6-simple-steps-to-a-kick-ass-social-media-strategy\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]