Finding potential clients (and candidates) online usually means that they will evaluate you in the same way that you evaluate them – so a social media strategy is important.

Developing Your Social Media Strategy:

• Determine the purpose of a potential social media strategy
• Specify and research your target audience
• Select the appropriate social media channels
• Pinpoint your strategy’s goals and measures
• Develop an implementation strategy

Determine the purpose of social media Strategy

Does your firm need to:

• Develop new business relationships?
• Promote educational content?
• Attract more qualified visitors to your website?
• Research your industry, competition and audience?
• Recruit new employees?

It’s important to get all of your teams and departments (such as executive, legal, creative and web personnel) on the same page from the very beginning.

Specify and research your target audience

Determine your target audience, but avoid being too focused on a specific type of customer. Social media is an open platform of sharing, the more the content you produced that is shared by others the better.

Remember: social media has provided an opportunity to think broader. Businesses are no longer limited geographically or even by time – 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Select the appropriate social media channels

Research saves time and money and helps to allocate resources, so it is important to get it right.

Aim: Consistent quality of social media content.

Where to begin?

Many businesses start by selecting the channel first because of its popularity. However, this will count for nothing if your target audience does not use the site. Research will determine which channel your audience uses the most. For example: Pinterest is a popular social media platform, however it is irrelevant for most businesses, as Pinterest is typically used to share fashion, home decor, crafts and recipes – not business advice.

TIP: If your business is aimed at business professionals, use LinkedIn. It is a great way to learn about your clients, competition and their networks. You can read more about marketing with LinkedIn in our blog post here.

Remember: you don’t need to do it all, one strong social media channel can be better than several weaker ones.
Pinpoint your strategies goals and measures

Your strategy’s goals and measures, will generally fall into three broad categories:

• Activity – Is it going to be used to promoted educational content? Or advertise a new product or service?
• Reach – How far can the strategy reach? Estimate how many people you expect to see the content.
• Results – What is the desired end result? More exposure for a product? Sharing educational content to create an image of good value?

Develop implementation tactics

Don’t just guess – successful companies that use social media regularly undertake research.

Remember: Constantly look for useful tips from the market leaders. The most typical tip is to humanize your business through social media – let the customer know that friendly people work here, and are looking to help them and their business.

Implementation:

• Hire an internal resource? There are many long-term benefits for training and developing a strategy internally.
• Outsource? If you are looking for a short term solution there are many companies with expertise and proven success where training is not required.