You might be here because you are a social media manager, or you are wondering how to create an intentional social media presence for your brand. Before you create your content calendar and start posting to social media, it’s key to have a strategy in place, which provides purpose for each post and ensures that your presence is actually aligned with your goals.
In this blog, we will explore essential sections you’ll need in your social media strategy. If you are ready to get started with full guidance, we have a Social Media Strategy Set, which includes a full workbook, as well as, a beautiful template to present it with.
01 / Target Audience Analysis
Understanding your audience is essential for meaningful interactions on social media. By researching and getting to know their preferences, you can create content that truly connects with them.
You can split yout target audience analysis into 3 categories:
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Demographics |
This involves defining your target audience’s age range, gender distribution, locations, and income range. |
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Psychographics |
This involves looking into their values, approaches to decision-making, hobbies and interests, and attitudes in life. As well as, their emotional drivers. |
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Online Behaviours |
This involves exploring how your target audience interacts with marketing channels, their purchasing habits, and how they consume information online. |
02 / Industry Analysis
Your industry analysis should outline the trends shaping your niche. While many social media trends may be relevant, they will look different across industries — and only those that align with your brand and audience should inform your content strategy.
It’s also valuable to explore the social media activities of brands that inspire you. This helps you see what resonates in your sector, while ensuring your own content remains distinctive, authentic, and aligned with your brand’s unique voice.
03 / Business Analysis & Audit
An internal analysis is also essential — this is where you take stock of your business’s current social media position. Key elements include:
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Metrics: Review your social media performance, including Year-on-Year comparisons, to understand what’s working and where there’s room to grow.
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Audience Demographics: Examine your audience insights and compare them to your ideal audience. This helps ensure your content is reaching the right people.
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Top-Performing Posts: Identify your most successful posts and analyse why they resonated (as well as which posts haven't performed so well). These insights can then guide your content strategy moving forward.
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Top-Performing Hashtags and Keywords: Note which hashtags and keywords drive engagement, so you can integrate them into future posts for enhanced reach.
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SWOT Analysis: Explore your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This provides a clear view of where to focus your efforts, expand on opportunities, and minimise potential risks.
04 / Social Media Goals
When setting social media goals your priority is to align them with overarching brand objectives. Therefore, if you are a social media manager, it is important to understand your client’s needs, which you might do through consultation calls and questionnaires.
View New Client Questionnaire Template →
Your social media goals should be SMART:
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S |
Specific |
Goals should be clear, concise, and well-defined. |
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M |
Measurable |
Goals should include metrics to measure progress |
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A |
Achievable |
Goals should be challenging, but realistic. |
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R |
Relevant |
Goals should align with your main business objectives. |
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T |
Time-Bound |
Goals should have a specific time frame. |
For each goal, you should define the strategies you will implement and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you’ll use to measure progress.
05 / Posting Plan
In your posting plan, you should define:
• Frequency of posts per week
• Platforms you will be using
• Formats to be used
• Which days and times you will post
In the strategy, we also like to provide an overview of how this will be broken down on a weekly basis (which will be expanded upon in the content calendar).
06 / Content Pillars
Content pillars are the key themes around which your content is built — they provide structure and ensure everything you post aligns with your brand.
Each pillar serves a distinct purpose and should be implemented strategically. This means drawing insights from your target audience analysis, industry trends, and social media audit, and considering where each piece of content sits within the content funnel — whether it’s creating awareness, nurturing engagement, or driving conversions.
07 / Engagement Strategy
Social media management not only involves strategising, creating content, posting, and reporting; it is also important to actively engage with the social media community to build meaningful relationships.
Your engagement strategies are typically split into 2 categories:
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Inbound Engagement |
Outbound Engagement |
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This refers to responding to your audience, for instance, replying to comments on your own posts or DMs that are sent to your account. |
This is when you are the one initiating interactions, for instance, commenting on others posts, following relevant accounts, and sending DMs. |
In your social media strategy, you should define the actionable steps to carry out engagement, how often time should be allocated to these, and the KPIs to monitor engagement.
08 / Hashtags & SEO
Utilising the right hashtags and keywords boost your social media SEO as they categorise your content and help users find it. Hashtags might combine location relevance, niche-specific words, broader industry-related terms, and specific trends.
In our strategies, we like to outline hashtags and keywords based on each content pillar to ensure relevance to the post. By doing so, it also provides strategic guidance when it comes to writing caption copy.
09 / Platform Differentiation
Understanding the differences between platforms allows you to tailor your content strategy effectively. By considering each platform individually, you can align your content with audience preferences and encourage meaningful engagement across all channels.
For every platform you’re using consider the best practices, current trends, and how your strategy should be adapted.
10 / Social Media Style Guide
A social media style guide ensures your brand is presented consistently across all platforms. Following these guidelines helps every post reflect your brand’s visual identity and messaging, which is essential for building audience trust.
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Tone of Voice: Reflect your brand’s personality and the emotions or messages you want to convey in every post.
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Colour Palette: Use consistent colours that align with your brand identity and support the mood or message you want to communicate.
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Typography: Choose fonts that are easy to read, consistent with your brand, and reflective of your tone and messaging.
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Image Guidelines: Ensure imagery aligns with your brand values, storytelling, and overall aesthetic.
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Standards: Create a clear list of DOs and DON’Ts, including considerations such as emoji usage, response style, and hashtag strategy.
What next?
If you’d like extra support in completing your social media strategy, our Social Media Strategy Set is designed to guide you through every step. Perfect for freelance social media managers, agencies, and business owners, it helps you create a considered, aligned, and actionable plan — giving you clarity, structure, and confidence in your content.
