Building your social media marketing strategy for 2021

Building your social media marketing strategy for 2021

Looking to fine-tune your social media marketing strategy for 2021?

Good! Now’s the perfect time to make it happen and leave 2020 behind for good.

Whether you’re totally new to social or just want to double-check your priorities in 2021, this guide has you covered.

-    Set goals that make sense for your business
-    Take time to research your target audience
-    Establish your most important metrics and KPIs
-    Create (and curate) engaging social content
-    Make your social presence as timely as possible
-    Assess what’s working, what isn’t and how to keep improving

1.    Set goals that make sense for your business

Let’s kick things off with a quick question:

“What do you want from social media, anyway?

Social media strategy planning starts with your goals.

Perhaps you want to build a community or a more dedicated following. Maybe you want your social accounts to drive more revenue this year.

Either way, your goals will define your content strategy and how much time and energy you’ll need to dedicate to your campaigns.
What really matters is that you set realistic social media goals.

Emphasis on “realistic,” by the way. We recommend tackling smaller objectives that allow you to scale your social efforts in a way that’s both reasonable and affordable.

Below are some sample goals that businesses of all shapes and sizes can pursue.
-    Increase brand awareness.
-    Generate leads and sales.
-    Grow your brand’s audience.
-    Boost community engagement.
-    Drive traffic to your site.

2.    Take time to research your target audience

Remember: different platforms attract different audiences

Take today’s social media demographics, for example. These numbers speak directly to which networks your brand should approach and what types of content to publish. Here are some key takeaways as of 2021:

-    Facebook and YouTube are both prime places for ads due in part to their high-earning user bases.
-    The majority of Instagram and TikTok‘s users are millennials or Gen Z, signaling the strength of bold, eye-popping content that oozes with personality.
-    Women vastly outnumber men on Pinterest, which is noted to boast the highest average order value for social shoppers.
-    LinkedIn’s user base is well-educated, making it a hub for in-depth, industry-specific content that might be more complicated than what you see on Facebook or Twitter.

3.    Establish your most important metrics and KPIs

What metrics are we talking about, though? Check out the breakdown below:

-    Reach. Post reach is the number of unique users who saw your post. How far is your content actually reaching users’ feeds?
-    Clicks. This is the number of clicks on your content or account. Tracking clicks per campaign is essential to understand what drives curiosity or encourage people to buy.
-    Engagement. The total number of social interactions divided by the number of impressions. This sheds light on how well your audience perceives you and their willingness to interact.
-    Hashtag performance. What were your most-used hashtags? Which hashtags were most associated with your brand? Having these answers can help shape the focus of your content going forward.
-    Organic and paid likes: Beyond a standard Like count, these interactions are attributed to paid or organic content. Given how organic engagement is much harder to gain traction, which is why many brands turn to ads. Knowing these differences can help you budget both your ad spend and the time you invest in different formats.
-    Sentiment. This is the measurement of how users reacted to your content, brand or hashtag. Did customers find your recent campaign offensive? What type of sentiment are people associating with your campaign hashtag? It’s always better to dig deeper and find out how people are talking about your brand.

4.    Create (and curate) engaging social content

No surprises here. Your social media marketing strategy hinges on your content.

At this point, you should have a pretty good idea of what to publish based on your goal and brand identity. You probably feel confident in which networks to cover, too.

“Which types of content should be part of my 2021 social media marketing strategy?

-    Stories and time-sensitive posts
-    Short-form video
-    Posts that show off your human side


5.    Make your social presence as timely as possible

Timeliness is arguably more important than ever for marketers.

Not only are you expected to put out fresh content on a regular basis, but also always be “on” for your followers.

But you can’t always expect customers to operate on your clock. Timeliness is a tall order when you’re strapped for resources or are part of a small team.

Let’s look at some ideas to maximize your schedule and your time spent on social.

-    Post at the best times to engage
-    Respond to your customer questions and shout-outs ASAP

6.    Assess what’s working, what isn’t and how to keep improving

By now you should have a big-picture understanding of your social media strategy.

However, it’s important that you’re able to adapt your strategy as you progress throughout the year.

Without continuously analyzing your efforts, you’ll never know how one campaign did over another. Having a bird’s eye view of your social media activity helps put things into perspective. This means looking at your top-performing content and adjusting your campaigns when your content stalls.




Is your social media marketing strategy sorted out for 2021?

This guide highlights that there are plenty of moving pieces to a modern social presence.

That said, putting together yours doesn’t have to be a drag.

If you set actionable goals and address each of the steps above, you’ll already be way ahead of the curve when it comes to your social media marketing strategy.

Best of luck in 2021!