This post was originally posted on South & Palm– we are now In a Day.

1. Determine Your Goals

The first step in developing your social media strategy is to determine your goals. Ask yourself: Why do you even want to be on social media? What do you want social media to do for your business? Write those answers down and then start to develop goals for yourself.

Where do you want to be in 1 month? 6 months? A year? Set clear goals, attainable goals. 

For example, don’t just say “I want to become more visible online.” Instead, set the goal of generating 4 new leads from your social media profiles per month.

2. Conduct Market Research

The next step is to conduct market research and become really clear on your target audience. Which social media platforms are they hanging out on? On which platforms are they engaging and interacting with brands within your same niche?

Social listening is a great way to see how they are interacting with other brands. You can even conduct a survey and send it out to your target audience to learn about how they behave on the different social platforms, at what times they are on and what type of content they enjoy seeing the most from brands.

3. Determine Your Resources

Determine what resources you have available to reach your social media goals. How much time do you have to dedicate and when? What social media management tools are you going to be using? Are you going to outsource to an agency? Figuring out the resources you have available is such an important step that I see too many people skip. Not having adequate time and/or resources for your social media can sometimes lead to burnout and a negative perception of social media marketing.

Have you heard this before? “I tried social media and it did nothing for my business.”

We hear it all too often. Social media can be and is an amazing tool for your business to not only become more visible online, but to generate new leads and form strong connections with your target audience. Time is the main resource our clients lack, but we know not everyone can afford to hire someone right off the bat.

Carve out a time in your calendar to dedicate to social media. Maybe it’s Sunday Evenings, Friday Afternoons or Monday Mornings. Find a time that works best for you, schedule and create a week at a time (or even a month if you need to) and stick with it!

4. Develop Your Strategy

We like to call this the What, When, Why & How.

What – What type of content are you putting out?

Develop content jars, so you always know what type of content to create. Your content jars could be the same as your blog categories, or you could pick your most popular blog categories and throw in a personal touch such as your story, testimonials and more. I recommend creating 4-6 content jars. These can evolve, change and grow as your business grows, evolves and pivots.

When – At what times are you posting and how often?

Back in your research, you should have determined the best times to post for your audience. Take those times into account when scheduling. You should be posting enough to stay top-of-mind, but not so much that your ideal client gets annoyed of seeing you. We want them to say “I love their posts” and not, “not her again!”

Why – What is the rationale behind your strategy and content?

Do you have research and data to back up your strategy? Or are you just doing something just to do it? Test out your strategy, and revisit it every quarter to make sure it’s working and is still in-line with your goals.

How – How are you engaging and interacting with your audience?

You want your audience to know that you are real, that you listen and that you care. How are you going to do this? You can do this by going live and answering questions, interacting on stories, replying to comments and more.

Once you have all of this written out, you can really start to piece together your strategy and come up with a plan of action.

Related Post: How to Create Your Entire Social Media Strategy in 3 Simple Phases

5. Take Action & Be Consistent!

Put your strategy to work and take action so you can achieve your goals. You have to put in the work and be consistent. Social media isn’t always an overnight thing. It takes showing up for your people every single day. It’s building connections, forming the relationships and then turning them into customers and raving fans. You can do this. It is possible. Be consistent, be smart and plan ahead!

Bonus Tip: Repurpose Old Content

Hit a road block in your content creation? Unsure what to post? Take an old blog post, podcast or youtube video and repurpose it into social media graphics.

Here’s an example we did for a client of ours: