Can you hear your brand’s voice inside your head? While that oftentimes may be cause for concern, don’t panic—it’s just another sign that you’re a social media strategy guru, a fantastic marketer, and a creative thinker! 

Knowing how your brand walks and talks is essential to effectively communicate core values, piquing interest, driving sales, and most importantly, remaining memorable. And while having all that knowledge stored safely inside your busy brain will benefit your brand and its image throughout its reign, you can’t do it alone.  

With a plethora of marketing cooks in the advertising kitchen, consistency tends to waiver across departments, resulting in muddy messaging that typically misses the mark. It’s time to get everyone on the same page. After all, 75% of consumers expect consistent experiences from brands—don’t let them down! 

So, how can you best communicate the ins and outs that make up your brand’s entire identity without fail, leaving no room for error or clueless collaborators? Please turn your attention to your brand’s new prized possession: A master social media strategy. 

What Is a Social Media Strategy? 

Like video games have cheat codes or appliances have owner’s manuals, brand teams have playbooks—a master rulebook that leaves no stone unturned, no question unanswered. Used daily by marketers and relevant collaborators, social media strategies are the Holy Grail—allowing cross-functional teams to turn their social media strategy into a real boy, Geppetto. 

(Okay, maybe the personification of a wooden puppet didn’t work out as expected, but personifying your brand yields a different, more impactful result.)

One robust document, a cohesive social media strategy acts as your one-way ticket to brand success—doing the work of a resume, dating profile bio, digital music archive, Goodreads list, collection of draft posts that never made it onto X, aesthetic-defining board of Pins, and a dream journal all at once.  

Crafting an Epic Social Media Strategy 

There’s a lot of strategic, creative, and thoughtful thinking that goes into building such a coveted brand asset. As your team moves through the exercise of establishing your social media strategy—from researching competitors and audience insights to putting a face and name to your brand—it’s important to ensure everyone works together to achieve an outcome that you feel good about and, more importantly, that maps back to your overall mission.  

All in all, an epic social media strategy should touch upon several key talking points to help paint a clear picture of your entire brand vibe. Consider the below as you collaborate! 

Get a Lay of the [Industry] Landscape 

What makes your brand unique to its broad audience of consumers? Take an internal poll then secure data to back it up!  

Audit your audience: Who is your brand trying to reach? Compare that with the current pool of frequent engagers across your digital platforms–are they equal? Use this as an opportunity to level set and redefine your ideal consumer profile, if needed. 

Execute a competitor analysis: Stalk some of the bigwigs in your industry for a look at how they’re trying to reach relevant audiences. What’s working? What’s not working? Now that you know what’s already out there, focus on what makes your brand exciting and different. 

Reflect on reporting: How did past content fair among followers? In analyzing relevant performance metrics to identify brand highs and lows, your team can gather the beneficial context needed to better inform a future content strategy.  

Map Out a Mission 

You know who. Now, tell them why.  

Determine a mission possible: Often, larger brand ‘missions’ don’t play on social, especially when you consider its true purpose—to be social. Think of your ‘social mission’ as an addendum to that larger mission that allows your brand to put a unique, engaging spin on achievable goals like shifting audience perspectives, combatting misinformation, or improving awareness and affinity.  

Make time to be real: Does your brand know who they really are? Good. Now, communicate it to your audience! If your brand was a walking-talking personality, who would they be, and, more importantly, who would they not be? Work together with internal teams to align on ownable statements that best communicate what you can do for customers, where you stand on important issues, and what makes you different.  

Exude faith, trust, and pixie dust: 46% of consumers prefer to shop trustworthy brands. In short, trust gets you on their radar—and keeps them coming back for more. How can you make your marketing more inclusive? What can you do to show you’re not afraid to own your mistakes? The best brands always strive for honesty, transparency, and authenticity. 

Use Human Speak 

33% of consumers say a distinct personality and brand tone of voice is the main reason a brand stands out from competitors. No one wants to be brandsplained anymore—seriously, we’ve been there and solved that. 

Live and die by your personas: Who are the unique characters that make up your brand? Just like creating a Sim, personas (i.e. characters) serve as a visual representation of your brand and its accompanying social voice. What adjectives best describe your persona? What tunes might we find on their Spotify account? What emojis are they using most often? By collectively mapping back to a set of approved personality traits based on both qualitative and quantitative data, teams can ensure consistency no matter who is writing on behalf of your brand today. 

Say it with slang: Being #relatable is a vibe. But not everyone can relate. If your brand can identify with the popular How Do You Do, Fellow Kids? meme, it’s safe to say slang is not a selling point. On the flip side, if your brand is a hit among digital generations like Zers or Alphas, don’t be afraid to speak their language. 

Be loud and clear: A clearly defined social media strategy is essential to fostering customer loyalty and gaining well-deserved recognition. In addition to prioritizing authenticity and transparency, there’s value in owning the language and terms that make your brand unique. 88% of marketers agree that brand language improves customer connections—which, in turn, boosts engagement, builds retention, and spikes sales. 

Strategize Success 

Put your grand brand plans into action! 

Play with pillars: Ensuring everything your brand creates ties back to a unique set of content pillars can help steer stakeholders in the right direction, keeping everyone aligned with brand goals, quirks, and the like. Consider how often you want your brand to tap into certain topics, like its legacy or its people and employees, to help design relevant pillars that will serve as the driver of your future social strategy. 

Leave space for trends and shifting POVs: Social media is always changing—and your brand should be able to follow suit. Think of your social media strategy as a living, breathing document. Editing is encouraged! Nothing is written in stone; anything is subject to change. Consider how new trends or important shifts in perspective might play a role in your brand’s future. Leave space for change. 

Listen, learn, repeat: Brands who keep their ear to the ground are more likely to retain loyal consumers. Listen to what they like, what they dislike, what they want more of, and what others do to stay in their audience’s good graces. Digest it and learn from it—how can your brand better tailor communications based on consumer conversations?  

Learn, Earn, and Grow: AGAIN Interactive Helps Your Brand Implement a Social Media Strategy 

Compiling the ~perfect~ social media strategy can be a daunting task—but, with the right partner agency by your side, your brand can uncover its unique personality and begin using its social voice! Our client’s success proves it. 

Ready to start using your social voice? Drop us a line at info@againinteractive.com.