5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Social Media Strategy

While this year’s events have forced a lot of us to think on the fly and make decisions on our feet, it’s definitely time to slow things down and do some proper planning.

If there’s anything I’ve learnt as far as social media strategies go, it’s that they don’t work when they’re inflexible, but they can be your saving grace when the proverbial stuff hits the fan.

Here’s why you absolutely need a social media strategy right now.

But first, what is a social media strat?

Your social media strategy is an outline of the goals, role, methods and best practices of your business’s social media. It includes a social media playbook, which guides your brand’s actions on social media and informs how you handle everything from questions to queries and even crises.

Since your strategy is a living document, it’s flexible and should be adjusted often.

1. Defining success

The first (and probably most important) part of your social media strategy is defining your goals in order to determine what your ROI or success on social media would look like. This is unique to the brand and should always complement your overall business and marketing objectives.

Since COVID-19 has changed how a lot of audiences use and interact with brands on social media, as well as how they purchase goods and services, it’s necessary for businesses to revisit and possibly adjust their marketing and social media objectives.

2. Preparing for a rainy day

This year has been full of rainy days, forcing brands to make changes and anticipate anything. It’s important to note that brands don’t exist in a vacuum, which means that issues affecting your audience, customers and even employees, also affect your brand and should somehow be addressed.

Without a clear, extensive strategy, you have no guidelines regarding which stance your brand should take, which issues you can speak on and how to tackle them. To avoid confusion, delays and inconsistencies, a social media strategy is key.

3. No time to waste

This year has taught us that things can change in the blink of an eye and adjusting to change is a difficult and sometimes time-consuming process. What shouldn’t suffer while you’re making adjustments to your business, is your social media presence.

Having a flexible strategy allows you to move with the times and be on top of events, while still being able to maintain engagement with your audience. When your business doesn’t have a social media strategy, you’re likely to spend more time figuring a way around situations and events as they happen.

4. Better content

Your social media strategy and playbook give you a set guideline and structure so that you can focus on creating consistent, creative content that resonates.

A good strategy is data-centric, which means that your audience’s habits, needs and content consumption patterns are already outlined for the content creator; making it easier to curate content that’s relevant and effective.

Currently, people are spending a lot more time on social media and may be weary of ads, making them impervious to content that isn’t fresh, relevant and creatively executed. Using the data in your strategy, you can constantly revamp your content to keep users engaged.

5. Improve your offering

An audience-focused social media marketing strategy helps your brand build a relationship with audiences and customers online, helping you gather the necessary information to improve your product offering over time. This shows customers that they matter to the brand, turning them into loyal brand advocates.

With the numerous changes we’ve experienced this year, your brand can’t afford to not have data-driven insights and guidelines to help you roll with the punches and stay on top of your social media game.

Ready to become more socially acceptable?

Don’t have a social media strategy or an inkling of how to start going about creating one? Arc Interactive can help you formulate an effective one that helps you meet your objectives while staying relevant on the socials.

About the author

Sizakele Nene is an avid lover of books and all things language. When she’s not conjuring up plans to end injustice and poor grammar, she’s fulfilling her role as Brand Strategist and Content Lead at Arc Interactive.

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Recommended reading

If you enjoyed this post and have a little extra time to dive deeper down the rabbit hole, why not check out the following posts on social media marketing.

• 6 Reasons You Should Follow Your Competitors On Social Media
• How To Write Social Media Captions that Spark Engagement
• 7 Foolproof Steps To Approaching Companies On Social Media In 2020
• 5 Ways Social Media Impacts Your SEO
• 7 Key Methods For Finding Trending Topics With Social Media
• 10 Social Media Ideas For Small Businesses

Tags: Social Media , Guest Post