In today’s modern age, social media is essential to expanding your reach and connecting with more potential consumers—and with just seven simple strategies, you can improve your online presence to help you meet all your goals.

A fresh and exciting year is on the horizon, and it’s brimming with new opportunities to examine your organization’s processes, goals, and strategies and hit the refresh button where necessary. One such area deserving of your focus is your social media marketing. It’s well-known that platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok have changed the game for businesses; nowadays, even the smallest companies have numerous available avenues for expanding their brands’ presence and reaching more of their target audiences.

At the same time, the online landscape is constantly evolving. Every day, it seems that new trends emerge, user behavior shifts, and algorithms get tweaked. That’s why it’s essential to be proactive with your marketing and stay as ahead of the curve as possible. Consider using these tactics to create a winning social media plan, ensuring that your business makes a lasting impression where and when it counts.

Take stock

If your business currently has an online presence, first look back on 2024 before crafting your 2025 strategy. By auditing your content and how well it’s been performing, you and your team can better determine what is and isn’t working and, more importantly, why. Start by examining your posts’ engagement rates, including likes, comments, shares, and saves. If they’re on the lower side, assess why your content may not be attracting interaction and how you can improve it to drive consumers to your website or landing pages. For instance, if your goal is to sell more of your products, then consider what kind of posts in the past have done this the most.

Next, look at your overall online reach. How many followers do you have? What are the primary demographics of that group? Hopefully, what you find will align with your target audience, indicating that your content resonates with it and that you should invest in tactics similar to your current ones. Conversely, this examination may reveal that the majority of your followers fall within a consumer group outside your ideal client base. Whether it’s a new audience to market to that you haven’t considered in the past or one entirely irrelevant to your offerings, you’ll want to adjust your strategy in some way to help make your social media efforts more effective for your goals.

Beyond these key components, every platform has distinct analytics tools, so be sure to look at each one for a more comprehensive data analysis. The in-depth examination may be time-consuming, but it can help you better identify areas for improvement or where you need to double down on what’s working.

Establish concrete goals

Now that you’ve assessed your 2024 strategy, you’re equipped to begin planning for the year ahead. As with anything in business, you’ll want to start by understanding your goals. Having defined objectives will provide more direction and better enable your team to track your success. Some common ones are to increase brand awareness, generate more leads, improve customer engagement, and drive traffic to your website. Whatever vision you choose, it will lay the groundwork for the rest of your content strategy. After identifying your main objectives, make them SMART—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. (For more on these, go to p. 22.) For instance, it’s not enough to broadly say you want to increase brand awareness and reach a larger audience. Instead, establish a specific target of growing your Instagram or TikTok followers by 10 percent during Q1. Such a measurable benchmark will allow you to track your wins and losses along the way and adjust your course when necessary.

Know your audience

Once you have your goals, identify your target audience. Even if you’ve previously defined your ideal client, it’s important to reassess to ensure that it’s still accurate and up-to-date. After all, you must understand who you’re trying to reach so you can craft compelling social media content that appeals to them. Take time at the start of the year to create or refine a buyer persona, or a representation of the primary customer you’re marketing to. (You could even make more than one if you have multiple audiences or subsections within them). In this profile, be sure to include demographics, interests, online behavior, and any potential pain points your customers may be facing. The more you know about your ideal consumer, the more you can tailor your content to resonate with them.

Stick to certain platforms

With a plethora of social media platforms available, it’s tempting to be everywhere all at once; however, spreading yourself too thin can ultimately dilute your efforts. Instead, focus on the platforms that are optimal for sharing the type of content best suited to both your organization and your audience. For example, Instagram is perfect for visual content like photos, infographics, and short-form videos. YouTube, on the other hand, is better for longer videos such as tutorials and demonstrations. And if your organization is more B2B, you may want to consider focusing on a platform like LinkedIn since it’s geared toward marketing, networking, and thought leadership content that may not perform as well on another site. Research each platform thoroughly to determine which ones may work best for your business and help you reach your goals.

Craft compelling posts

Social media is all about content. You want to create posts that capture your audience’s attention while also adding value to their day, such as by offering tips on topics related to your industry or even just making them laugh. Most of the time, such content can be repurposed for use across multiple platforms, but don’t simply create one image or video and post it to all your accounts. Sites like X and Threads are text based, for instance, so you’d want to turn your TikTok video into a written post for those and vice versa.

With all your content, variety is key. It’s best to avoid posting the same type of image or video each day, which may lead to greater monotony and decrease consumers’ interest in your brand. Instead, post images, videos, infographics, and even live streams that are a mix of personal and educational. Perhaps feature a day in the life of your office manager on Monday and then post a video of someone using your product on Wednesday. Beyond maintaining the intrigue, this variety also creates more opportunities to generate the authentic content that many users are searching for.

No matter what you post, always include a clear call to action. Whether it’s directing users to your website, encouraging comments, or asking them to share a post, giving a directive will support higher engagement with both your online content and your products or services.

Stay consistent and engaged

Social media is a marathon, not a sprint. Consistent posting is crucial for building brand awareness and fostering engagement, so develop a content calendar to plan your posts in advance and ensure a steady flow of content across your chosen platforms. Also take advantage of the scheduling tools offered by many social media sites, which can help you streamline your publishing to save time and avoid forgetting to post.

And remember that social media is a two-way street. Don’t just post and forget about it; instead, actively engage with your audience by responding to comments and messages promptly. This demonstrates to your current and potential consumers that you value their feedback and are more than just a machine following a content calendar.

Track your success, and embrace change

Social media is a dynamic landscape, making it essential that you continually monitor your performance and track your progress toward your goals via metrics like engagement rate, website traffic, and follower growth. You and your team can then use these insights to refine your strategy and adapt your content based on what performs best and resonates most with your audience. And don’t be shy about experimenting with different content formats, posting times, and platforms to see what may yield the top results.

Even more, new technologies, platforms, features, and customer behaviors are constantly emerging, so keep your eye on the landscape. Work as a team to adapt your content accordingly, continually striving to stay flexible to maintain relevancy in the fast-paced world.

At its core, social media is about building relationships and authentic connections with your audience and providing value. With a strategic approach and consistent effort, you can leverage it to elevate your brand, build a loyal following, and achieve your business goals in the year ahead.

TAKE ACTION:
Examine your current social media strategy, and work to implement these steps to better connect with your audience and meet your goals.