You know social media is necessary for your business, but you don’t know where to start. Even as pros, we get it: social media can feel overwhelming, out of reach, and downright hard–but don’t throw your phone across the room just yet.

If we’re not creating your social media strategy for you, we want to give you the next best thing. So here are three things we recommend you do before you ever post on social media. 

1. Determine Your Social Media Content Goals

Creating business content is not only about selling to your audience but relating to them so they feel you understand their desires and pain points. These four emotional content goals will provide a framework to curate social content for your business. Try to give your business’s social media content a healthy balance of these emotional content goals, and your social engagement will increase over time. 

Education

As an expert or authority in your niche, you need to educate your audience–both to show how much of an expert you are and to educate them on the benefits of hiring you. 

Many brands avoid detailed educational content because they worry giving away too much for free will discourage people from buying. In our opinion, there is no such thing as giving away “too much” on social media. No amount of content will ever replace actually hiring or buying from you. So educate as much as you can to let your audience know you are the real deal!

Inspiration

The biggest, most successful brands don’t just sell products or services–they sell feelings. For example, Nike doesn’t just sell shoes and fitness apparel–they sell motivation. Likewise, Apple doesn’t just sell technology–they sell creativity. 

Consider this: What feeling do you hope your product or service will inspire in your customers? Then, create content that delivers that same feeling. 

Connection

People buy from brands they relate to and like. So show off your brand’s personality and give them a reason to join your party! There may be a million competitors in your industry to choose from, but there is no brand out there like yours. 

Share behind-the-scenes content, a peek into your operations, introductions to your team, and exclusive experiences for your online audience. Not only does this make your audience feel like insiders, it personalizes your brand. And when it comes time to buy, you’ll be top of mind. 

Sales 

Your brand is not on social media to be popular; you’re there to be profitable. So don’t be afraid to sell to your audience when appropriate. Some of your content should directly promote your offers and make the conversion process as easy as possible. 

2. Determine which social media platforms you will invest in

Do some research (or let us help you!) to determine which social media platforms your audience spends the most time on. Understanding which platforms your audience uses most will help you decide where your time and budget are best spent. 

There is no need to be everywhere at once; don’t spread yourself too thin. Instead, spend your time, money, and energy on 2 or 3 platforms that are the most likely to convert to sales. 

3. Create a social media schedule you can actually stick to 

You might feel like you have to post every day, multiple times a day. In our experience, that’s not at all true. 

Do you need to be consistent? Yes. 

Do you need to show up online multiple times per week? Yes. 

But it needs to be scheduled so as to not burn you or your team out. Look at your schedule and your internal resources. How many posts can you and your team realistically handle each week? 

Start small so you and your team can get comfortable with the content creation and posting workflow. Focus on creating quality content at the rate that you can maintain.

Now you’re ready to tackle your social media strategy. We believe in you! But if you’d rather hand this off to the professionals, we’ve got you. Creating a custom social media marketing strategy is one of our superpowers. Reach out to see how we can create yours!