In the early days of social media, you could get away with posting without any real plan or strategy. However, in 2025, a social media strategy is essential for businesses aiming to leverage their social media accounts to expand their brand and generate leads.
What is a social media strategy?
A social media strategy is the roadmap companies follow to help guide and inform their social media posts. Does it tell you exactly what to post? No. However, it provides guidance on which platforms to use, when to post, what type of content to share, and topics specifically designed to resonate with your ideal customer.
Why is a social media strategy important?
We live in a digital world, which means that your brand has access to everyone online. When you post online through your social media channels, on your website, or invest in digital advertising, anyone in the world can potentially see your brand. However, reaching your ideal customer is not as simple as just being online. Only a small fraction of other online users will see your brand, and how many of those are your target customers?
If you are a pizza restaurant located in Arlington, Virginia, it won’t help you much to reach an online audience in Newark, NJ.
Developing a social media strategy, or any marketing strategy, lays out a plan for your brand to reach your ideal customer. It allows you to stand out from the digital noise for your target audience.
How to create a social media strategy
A social media strategy is a key component of a comprehensive marketing strategy. A good social media strategy includes precise goals for social media, a clear understanding of your target audience, identification of the optimal platform, a content strategy, and regular monthly metrics review and analysis.
1. Define and align your goals for social media
Developing clear goals for your social media account will set your social media strategy on the path to success. Are you looking for brand building? Are you looking to build attendance at an event? Or is your real goal to generate more leads for your business?
When defining your social media goals, they must align with your overall marketing strategy. If the marketing team asserts that the goal of social media is brand building, it’s essential to ensure that everyone in the organization feels the same way. All too often, marketing says they want brand awareness, but someone else in the organization expects lead generation. Establishing and communicating a clear goal for social media at the outset is crucial for informing and guiding many other aspects of the social media strategy.
As a digital marketing agency, the primary goal for most of our clients on social media is brand building. However, brand awareness goals are often overlooked when reviewing monthly performance metrics, as the natural inclination for some brands is to focus on lead generation.
It is critical that brands are realistic and forthcoming about their social media goals. Content creators develop customized content for clients based on the social media strategy aligned with the client’s stated goals. When clients critique performance against a different metric, such as leads, a disconnect arises, and the social media strategy gets blamed for performance woes that aren’t really a problem.
For our fictional pizza restaurant in Clarendon, they sell pizza by the slice and are open until late at night. Their goal is to increase brand awareness so that hungry customers think of them when a pizza craving arises. A good social media manager will develop content and reporting that focuses on metrics such as reach, mentions, tags, and shares. These are all indicators that people are aware of the brand and engaging with it. Of course, the more people share your content or tag a friend, the greater the likelihood that these individuals will walk in the door on a Friday night to grab a slice of pizza. So, sales and leads eventually play a role, but they are not the primary measurement for this account.
If you are unsure what these metrics mean and how to measure them, this blog from Ross Simmonds breaks down the different social media metrics and how to measure them.
2. Know your audience
The first step in any social media strategy is to develop a clear picture of who your target audience is. Who are they? Where are they? What do they like to do?
For our fictitious pizza shop in Arlington, the target audience is young professionals who frequent the bars in the surrounding Clarendon neighborhood. A deeper picture of their audience will also involve learning more about these individuals. Are they politically leaning? Likely, yes, living in Arlington. Content with political undertones might resonate with these individuals, but maybe less so for a by-the-slice late-night pizza joint in Newark, New Jersey.
3. Select a platform that aligns with your audience and goals
Once you know your goals for social media and who your audience is, the next step is to determine what platform or platforms are the best fit for your brand.
If you are a software company looking to raise your awareness and connect with potential clients, LinkedIn is a good place for you. For our pizza restaurant in Clarendon, Instagram or TikTok will likely be a good place for their content. I’m not saying that the pizza shop can’t be on LinkedIn, or that the software company can’t post on Instagram, but with very different audiences, they won’t perform as well. You need to know who your target audience is and go where they are.
Posting great content on a platform where your target audience doesn’t exist is simply a waste of time.
Your social media goals need to align with the social media accounts you choose to participate in. Some platforms, such as LinkedIn, excel for B2B brands seeking to connect with other companies and generate leads. Others, such as YouTube and Instagram, are better suited to brand awareness. This article by Sprout Social provides an excellent overview of over 20 social media platforms and their specific attributes in 2025.
4. Develop a content strategy for social media
With defined goals, a clear understanding of your audience, and identification of social media platforms that align with your goals and audience, you are now ready to develop a content strategy for social media.
A social media content plan serves as a roadmap for what to post, when to post, and in what format to post. For our pizza restaurant in Clarendon, content focused on building their brand might highlight special offerings, spotlight their hours, and shareable reels. They might also collaborate with local influencers to jumpstart brand awareness among their target audience. A content strategy may also outline daily postings to IG stories to keep their business top of mind for people when they are heading out to the bars of Clarendon.
Meanwhile, a content plan for our software company will lean heavily into thought leadership. Principals of the organization might post blogs on LinkedIn and regularly comment on content from their target audience. Additionally, they can host webinars and offer free sessions or meetings to reach their target audience.
5. Develop a monthly review plan for your social media
The final step in a successful social media strategy is to develop a plan to capture, review, and analyze results monthly. Most social media scheduling software offers easy-to-use reporting tools that enable quick monthly report generation.
When reviewing monthly social media metrics, it is essential to reflect on the social media goals. Success is defined in relation to the primary goal. Monthly social media reporting should not ignore the secondary and tertiary goals, but I caution against putting undue emphasis on them. Measurement against lesser goals has the potential to undermine your primary goal.
Can I hire someone to do a social media strategy?
Yes! Hiring someone to develop a social media plan for your business is an excellent investment. A comprehensive marketing firm or a digital marketing firm with a focus on social media can work with you to develop a customized social media strategy for your business.
A social media strategy takes the guesswork out of posting on social media. As a business owner, you can use the social media roadmap to make informed decisions about when to post, what type of content to post, and topics that are all specifically designed to resonate with your ideal customer.
