Hi guys, and welcome to Episode 3 of The Hayley Osborne Show. I am super excited to dive straight into the almighty social media strategy, and why it’s important for you to build your brand and your business online with a defined social media strategy.
Whether you’re just starting out in business or you’ve been in business for a few years, this episode is for you.
Today I’ll be discussing 6 reasons why you should have a social media strategy for your business.
So, let’s get started with the hitting the hard, striking home points: Trying to build a brand (and business for that matter) on social media without a defined strategy can be totally counterproductive. How you grow your business matters.
You’ll find yourself just posting for the sake of it, with little reason or flow, and as a result, seeing no return from your efforts because of your lack of planning.
What tends to follow on from this is a haphazard and totally unstructured social media feed, along with your captions, messaging, calls to action and clearly articulated bio being all over the place.
This leaves you with not knowing what you really stand for and honestly…That will mean your reader and “ideal client” will have no idea either, because if you don’t know, then how are they meant to know.
As a social media strategist and marketing strategist I see this all too often with my clients, and more times than none, they know what they want to convey, however just don’t have the strategy in place to be able to smoothly do it and execute it in a way that is not confusing for the reader.
I say this time and time again: when you’re so close to something you just can’t see it anymore.
OK, point number 1.
You want to create a social media strategy to build a strong, organic presence.
The first reason you need a social media strategy is because it will help you to build a strong, organic presence online.
You’ll be able to plan your posts in advance and get them scheduled and set. All of this, in-turn, will help you stick to social media rule number one: posting consistently.
Failure to maintain consistency is one very big reason social media accounts stop growing. This is what separates those brands that are just “on” social media, to those brands that are “using” social media to their advantage.
Your planning will also give you a periscope view of what’s coming up and what you’ve already spoken about avoiding duplication and making sure you cover all all of your business aspects. Often we think we’ve spoken about something so therefore our audience don’t want to keep hearing the same thing over and over. But this is not the case. Turns out, your audience does not see everything you post. They’re not always online and as we live in such a cluttered marketplace our repetition is imperative to our brand awareness.
Also telling your story consistently but in different ways every time will help you resonate and get on many different people’s pages. Remember: there is no unique message, only unique messages. I heard this on Carries Green’s podcast “She Means Business” and it just stuck with me.
Point number 2. We create our Social Media Strategy to save time
This is the second benefit to creating and implementing a social media strategy. It will help save you bucket loads of time in the long run, and as busy business owners who wouldn’t want more time on their hands?
When I created the social media strategy for my business, the needle definitely started to move.
Organising your images, understanding your caption categories and writing your captions is a big task at first, but getting your posting needs sorted and scheduled for the next week or month will greatly reduce the time you spend on actually posting each day. This isn’t the only element to having a social media strategy, but it is a very big chuck of your time, and as business owners, trying to do a million things at once, we all know how precious our time is and how we need to nurture it.
So, no more staring at a blank screen scrambling to figure out what image to use, what to write and ultimately what to post. You’ll now be able to spend a little more time on other important tasks to propel you forward as well as analysing what’s working and what’s not, because now you have a strategy.
Number 3. Make sure your objectives goals are covered
Having a social media strategy in place will absolutely ensure all your that your social media efforts are more fruitful and are working to support your broader business goals.
Gone are the days of “for the sake of it” posting. We’re playing in a space that is the most lucrative marketplace our world has ever seen. So, every piece of this happy pie is important.
As you know, and I know I don’t need to say this again and again, but social media usage is one of the most popular online activities. In 2020, when I’m recording this podcast episode, over 3.6 billion people are using social media globally, a number projected to increase to almost 4.41 billion in 2025. A social media strategy is sounding mighty fine right now hey!
Imagine if your business could take .05% of this pie…honestly think about it. That’s XXXX people using social media.
So, putting a strategy together includes outlining your broader business goals, so that you can work backwards to create posts that reinforce them. This is where your story telling is imperative to your social media success. We as consumers love the journey and love the story. So as business owners we need to get super clear on our story, attached to our objectives and tell it over and over in a compelling and super creative way. This should come naturally as at the end of the day you’re talking about your passion, which is your business.
You’ll also want to outline your social media goals (and track them) so you have something to work towards, and to validate that the work you are doing is paying off. Writing them down is always such a fruitful exercise to track how far you’ve come or what work you need to keep doing or shifting in order to maintain the growth and reach your objectives.
Number 4. A Social Media Strategy will help you target your audience more effectively
But how does a social media strategy enable you to target your audience more effectively Hayley?
Part of your strategy should include adding in ways to engage with your audience. Like clearly articulating what your call-to-action points are, all coming back to your objectives. Measuring along the way what your audience responds to and what they don’t. You can add in audience engagement elements (like open-ended questions) into your updates to get a better handle on your audience’s pain points, and how you can also be thinking about providing value to solve them, by solving the problems they have.
You created your business because there was a need or a gap in the market for what you offer, right? And you’re naturally good at what you do. Or you created it because you saw you could do something better or differently to what was currently out there. I’d love you to harness these powers and get really creative in understanding what your audience want is and focusing on that as the outcome of the product or service you provide.
Number 5. Having a Social Media Strategy will help you to leave room for that important element of creativity, therefore creating better content
We all know that it’s our creativity, no matter the industry we’re working in that got us all to the point where we are in business right now. Be it small, medium or large.
But this is hard to maintain if we don’t give ourselves the space to be able to breath and ignite our creative vibes over and over. I know that consistently being creative is a huge driver within my business and something I always try and nurture as best I can, giving myself the space to be able to get creative and get that passion back after a big days of working in the business. The creativity comes when you allow yourself the freedom to work on the business.
A social media strategy will bring forward the parts and pieces that are working for your business – as well as the ones which are not.
A strategy in line with your business goals will give you the opportunity to refine the quality of your material and enables you to think about how you can get creative with social posts.
This can include using the different and dynamic tools available on the social media networks, like video, stories and reels.
Whatever extra it is, having more freedom to get creative will allow you to really dive in and show your audience you know what you’re doing.
And lastly number 6. Stay ahead of the competition
So, the last reason as to why you need a Social Media Strategy in your business is that it’ll help you to stay ahead of the competition.
Now I’m not saying to copy anyone in any way, but you do need to be aware of how the market is moving, what’s trending, what’s changing and what ways you need to move and twist in your business to stay ahead of the curb. Sounds like a game, and it kinda is in a way.
The only way you’ll be able to do this is if you develop a social media strategy, freeing up your time to take that periscope view strategically, rather than always be in activation mode.
Competitor analysis is something I’ve been doing as a marketer for years, on product and service businesses I’ve worked across, the fundamentals don’t change, it’s the platforms that expand and contract over time to suit the way society trends.
Tying everything I’ve covered in this episode, with strategically planned and activated content, you can concentrate on those fine details which help you stand out from everyone else in your niche and industry.
By having a social media strategy you’ll be able to really start developing your brand voice and brand story, establish a crystal clear and distinctive look and feel across your social media accounts and platforms, and all while remaining consistent and providing epic value to your audience. It’s the value they love.
Say goodbye to the feeling like you’re going crazy and see-ya to feeling like this is a burden and a chore. Your socials are no longer empty from one week to the next because you’re now sticking to a social media strategy that works.
These social media platforms are growing faster than anyone had ever imagined and are the most powerful weapons your business needs to utilise. No one grew by doing nothing.
I hope this episode has helped to motivate and inspire you to get organised and aligned across your business strategies and social media strategies to win this year.
Will your current strategy help you build the business of your dreams?
Download my FREE e-book, The Ultimate Guide to Building a 6 Figure Business Through Instagram www.hayleyosborne.com/ultimateguide
