95 Social Media | Planning your Social Media Strategy

A successful social media strategy leverages existing content to reach new audiences, transforms content to suit each social media channel and finds new online networks to share research outputs.

“A strategy is where you’re headed. A plan is how you will get there.“ ⁴⁸

A social media strategy defines how you will use social media to achieve your communications aims and the social media tools used to achieve this. It outlines the goals and measurable objectives for using social media, and the target outcomes you want to achieve. You will also need a plan but without a clear strategy, how do you prioritize the activities for a plan? Think strategy first, plan second. ⁴⁹

TIP: A social media strategy guides your efforts when engaging in social media. To avoid burn out, start implementing your plan on only one social media tool, with limited tactics.

There are many different templates available to create a social media strategy. Overall, they contain the following elements:

1. Articulate who you are on social media.
2. Identify your audience.
3. Set a goal(s).
4. Determine how to measure success of that goal.
5. Outline tactics to achieve the goal.