Are you looking to launch or refine a social media strategy for your business in 2022? With so many potential distractions, it’s important to have a streamlined yet highly effective strategy to help you plan and prioritize your activities on social platforms.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to help ensure you’ll achieve social media success for your business in 2022:

1. Determine Your Business Goals for 2022

Your first step is to set goals that make sense for your current stage of business growth. You want both a qualitatively rich vision of the future as well as measurable quantitative targets to help you stay on track throughout the year.

Some of the most common business social media goals are to increase brand awareness and to increase engagement. Whether you’re aiming for a larger following or a more active following or some combination of both, you’ll want to get clear on what you will want your current and prospective customers to do.

For example, will you be featuring exclusive deals for your followers or customers that you want them to buy during a limited availability time? Or will you want to promote new specials or products that you want your followers to share with their friends? Make sure you’ll have a clear call-to-action for all your social content that reflects your business goals.

2. Research Your Ideal Customer

Once you’ve determined your business goals, you want to make time to research your ideal customer.

There are a variety of tools to help you finetune your research, but don’t forget to make sure you’re first solid on the fundamentals. In 2022, there will be a multitude of active platforms, so you want to make sure you concentrate your efforts where you’re most likely to connect with your ideal audience. For example, TikTok generally caters to a younger audience, while women greatly outnumber men on Pinterest, and professionals focused on industry-specific news and content will be on LinkedIn.

Start by choosing just 1-2 platforms where you can focus your efforts and let everyone know to follow you there – you can always plan to expand once you’ve built a strong base. 

3. Figure out Which Metrics Matter Most

It’s easy to get caught up counting your followers or the number of “likes” you get on your posts – but these vanity metrics won’t necessarily lead to sales and/or business profitability.

Instead, you might want to focus on metrics such clicks-per-campaign or the number of unique users who actually saw your posts. Depending on your goals, you’ll want to figure out which metrics are actually worthwhile tracking.

4. Create Content for Your Social Platforms

Once you’ve determined your goals, your audience, and your preferred platform(s), you should have many of the key pillars in place that are necessary for creating effective content. You can see what’s already working to determine what you can be doing to stay competitive.

Some examples of posts that will be trending for 2022 include:

• Time Sensitive Content – FOMO is real, so be sure to tap into your followers’ fear of missing out with special short-lived campaigns. 
• Stories – customers love getting to know the real people behind an otherwise faceless brand, so consider sharing your stories and some behind-the-scenes glimpses to build a personal connection.
• Short Video – with the rise of Instagram Reels and TikTok as well as live video across many of the major social platforms, consider producing some short videos to engage your followers. 

5. Make Time to Engage

It’s not enough just to post frequently on social, you also want to make time to engage. There are tools you can use to determine the best times to post on various platforms, but don’t forget to experiment and monitor your campaigns. You might find that the best times for your specific audience may not be the most active times on the platform overall.

When it comes to timing your posts, the most important consideration could be planning for a time when you can engage. Customers are looking for quick responses, especially if they have questions about your products, services, or promotions. Statistics suggest that 40% of customers are expecting brands to respond within the first hour after they reach out on social media.

6. Review & Pivot If Necessary

The social media landscape is constantly evolving, so just because a certain strategy worked well once doesn’t mean it will continue to do so. It’s important to approach your social media activity with the mindset of an experimental scientist who is consistently testing and ready to pivot as new data emerges.

7. Bring In Expert Advice

One of the worst things your business can do with social media is to just try to “wing it” and hope things will work out. In 2022, your presence online and on social media will be too important for your customer relationships to just leave things to chance.

You might want to hire someone to take charge and manage your social accounts. Or, you might consider investing in a knowledgeable partner, agency, or freelancer to help you ensure you’ll reach your 2022 business goals.

Will 2022 be the year your business finally creates and implements an effective social media marketing strategy? If you’re interested in help from an expert partner to develop and manage a fully customized social strategy that gets results, consider linking arms with our team here at JXT Group. To learn more, give us a call at 718-690-730 or fill out our online form.