Creating social media content that converts can be a daunting task - trust me, we know! When you start a business, you have to wear many hats and unfortunately one of them is “Social Media Manager & Content Strategist”. Now, as a small business owner, investing in a social media strategist may be out of your price range (for now) - this is nothing to be ashamed of! It just means you need to put in a little extra work. So, to help the underdogs who aren’t ready to invest, we have done some digging and have created a failproof set of guidelines for small business owners wanting to DIY their social media content strategy:

Step 1: Define your goals

Before you deep dive into making content, it's important to define your goals. Here is where you ask yourself what you are actually wanting to achieve through your social media content?

Are you wanting to increase brand awareness?
Do you want to generate more leads?
Do you want more followers?
Do you want to drive people to your website or online store?
Do you want to drive more sales?
Do you want to increase engagement?

A thought that may be popping into your head is “I want to do all of that!” - but here’s the thing… The broader your goals are - the harder they will be to reach. So here is where you need to get specific with your goals - I suggest using the “SMART” framework for setting these goals.

Ideally, choose only one of the above goals to focus on and create content for that ONE goal for a set period of time. Once you get into the routine of creating strategic content (that is driven by a specific goal) you will then be able to see what changes can be made in your strategy! So for example, you could choose to create content centered around driving more traffic to your website - what you would need to do is ensure all of your posts and stories link back to your website and have a clear CTA (call to action) that drives people to a specific page of your website. That could be achieved with a CTA like: “Read more about these tips on our latest blog - link in bio!”.

Setting SMART Goals:

The SMART framework is a simple way to set meaningful goals within your business as they allow you to track your results and keep you accountable for reaching the social media goals you set for yourself!

Here’s an example of how you could write out a goal you would like to acheive in your social media content strategy:

“I want to increase my the number of website visits through Instagram posts by 10 unique visitors everyday by the 30th of March”

S- Is it Specific? Yes - I focus clearly on website visitors from Instagram posts.

M- Is it Measurable? Yes - Instagram has built-in analytics that allow me to track the number of website visitors per post.

A- Is it Achievable? This one depends on how engaged your current audience is and how well your content is performing. But ultimately, if your content is strategically created then yes it is achievable.

R- Is it Relevant? Yes it is relevant as increasing the number of unique visitors to your website is an excellent way to increase exposure and indirectly increase sales!

T- Is it Time-based? Yes it is! I set a date by which I would like to acheive the goal! Having an end-date is important as this allows you to gauge how realisitc your goals are over time and it allows you to adjust your goals if you are exceeding (or not meeting) your goals by a specific time.

The SMART framework is a simple way to set meaningful goals within your business as they allow you to track your results and keep you accountable for reaching the goals you set for yourself! This is a simple analysis that YOU can do on your own goals and the goals you wish to achieve through the content that you post.

Step 2: KNOW WHO your AUDIENCE IS

If you don’t know who your audience is then you may have a *slight* problem. Understanding your target audience is key to creating a successful social media strategy.

You need to know the demographics and psychographics of your ideal clients. This means you need to know where they are based, how old they are, where they normally shop, what products they normally buy, what social media platforms they use, and a *whole lot more*!

Having an in-depth knowledge of your ideal client’s spending habits allows you to tailor your content towards them! If you don’t know exactly who you are trying to reach then your social media content will be ineffective to say the very least!

Lucky for you, we have created an Ideal Client Avatar Workbook that will tell you EXACTLY who your ideal clients are! Grab it here!

Step 3: CreatING a content calendar

Here is where you need to have a look at what platforms your ideal clients use so you know where to post your content! It’s no use posting to TikTok if none of your clients actually use TikTok! So, once you have found your Ideal Clients and selected which platforms to post to - next up is selecting which days of the week to post. An important thing to note here is the more often you post, generally the better your posts perform. Don’t let that scare you into thinking you need to post everyday - this can be exhausting and will lead to burn-out in no time! So rather than posting daily, think what is actually doable and maintainable for YOU. Is it three times a week (M,W,F) or maybe is it twice a week (Tue, Th)?

What ever schedule you choose, you need to be confident that you can stick to it because consistency is key! I suggest starting small with two posts a week - if you find this is easy for you to maintain in your social media strategy - then up it to 3!

An easy way to stay on-top of your social media strategy is pre-scheduling out your content, you can do this using the Meta Business Suite to pre-schedule out all of your posts and captions. Other useful tools include Later.com and Tailwind. Pre-scheduling out your content allows you to have more time to focus on other aspects of your business!

Step 4: Engage with your audience

Once you have created content that you know will resonate with your ideal clients - don’t just post and ghost! You need to engage with your followers and nurture that relationship you have with them! A nurtured audience is a happy audience.

So make sure to respond to the comments and messages that they send you. Get that conversation flowing rather than just liking a comment. Respond with valuable insights, ask questions and interact with them with the purpose of creating a connection! Interacting with your audience will help you build a relationship with them and increase their loyalty to your brand.

Step 5: Analyze and measure your results

Meta Business Suite offers excellent insights into the content that you post. You are able to track how many people liked, shared, saved and commented on your posts. These statistics are vital in ensuring that your social media strategy is actually working.

Yes, likes on a post are great, but what you should rather be focussing on are the comment, save and share counts. These KPI’s indicate how engaged your audience is. An engaged audience pushes your content up on the discover pae and you are more likely to get seen by new audiences! So don’t get caught up on the like count - likes are a vanity metric and nothing more!

Step 6: Be Consistent

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: CONSISTENCY IS KEY in your social media strategy.

One of the first goals you should set for yourself is consistently posting 2/3 times a week & interacting with your audience daily. If you can stick to this simple goal - then you are setting up your social media content strategy up for success!

Success on social media is not a gatekept secret - it just requires work and strategy. Creating a successful social media strategy (without a social media strategist) is not impossible if you follow these 6 steps! Don’t forget to grab our FREE IDEAL CLIENT WORKBOOK HERE!

How to create your own Social Media strategy as a small business owner