Building a successful and comprehensive social media strategy is crucial for your efforts to pay off long-term. Many brands and businesses merely guess at what works and what doesn’t, relying on gut feelings and spare time to determine what, when and how they’ll post to social media. For the most successful outcomes, social media strategies must take into account a variety of factors and ask key questions about the overall purpose. If your social media strategy could use a pick-me-up and you don’t know where to begin, then continue reading to find out which questions you should be asking about your strategy.

Who am I targeting?

Above all else, any successful social media strategy knows the answer to one question: just who is the main target of the strategy. Many brands focus on analyzing consumer data, past purchases and other glimpses into the lives of people most likely to resonate with their brand. If you already have information or data that suggests who is most likely to engage with you, then the answer to this question becomes easier. You want to focus with a laser-like intent on specific groups: merely targeting people in a geographic area or who like a particular idea or product just isn’t refined enough. Once you’ve really honed in on who is your target, you can start pinging servers on social media with organic content and paid ads to reach them.

What are the metrics for success?

Beyond accumulating a large number of followers or subscribers, what is the goal for your social media strategy? Are you trying to convert visitors into reliable customers? Is the goal to encourage as much interaction on your timeline and in posts as possible? Are you focusing on building brand awareness or brand loyalty? These questions are important ones and will further help to refine your broader social media strategy. Not every approach works in every circumstance, so knowing exactly what metrics you are aiming for can help you to determine whether and how you target each specific person.

What content works best for my strategy?

Last but not least, you’ll need to determine – based on who you’re targeting and what you want them to do – which forms of content resonate most successfully. We know that pinging servers with content on business networks such as LinkedIn often produces results when the content is authoritative, written from an expert’s point of view and is detailed. On other networks and among other audiences, however, you might be looking for a more informal approach – or a different type of content altogether. A little bit of testing will slowly reveal to you which types of content your audience prefers based on comments, shares, likes and other engagements. Use this information to better your overall social media strategy.

By asking yourself three basic questions – who are you targeting, which content works best to engage them and how you’ll measure success overall – you can easily begin implementing and improving your social media strategy. What other questions do you have about growing your social media clout? Let us know below in the comments and we may have an answer for you!