… let’s think about social media marketing.

In this use case scenario, ACME Corporation provides direct-to-consumer products to people who want to improve their health and fitness.

ACME is active on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. But, by and large, ACME’s social media strategy is ineffective and stale. It needs a refresh.

Currently, ACME publishes organic content on social media daily.

And … occasionally, ACME’s social media manager will invest in paid social advertising such as boosting posts and sponsoring content.

As the new CMO at Acme, your role is to improve ACME’s social media strategy and measure its performance.

How would you approach this use case, ?

Based on past experience, you’ve seen B2C companies effectively use social media to increase brand awareness, build a community of followers, and shorten the sales cycle.

That’s what you want to accomplish for ACME.

Therefore, ACME’s social media team should create and publish 3 types of content. … content that:

Also from past experience … you know that ACME’s social media activity is not a direct SEO ranking factor on Google or Bing.

But, social media activity does help with link building, distribution of content, and lead generation/nurturing.

Therefore, posting organic content on social media several times per day is a good tactic that ACME will continue.

Matt Cutts, the former head of the webspam team at Google said:

“The correlation between social signals and ranking position is extremely high, and the number of social signals per landing page has remained constant. The top-ranked websites in Google’s rankings displays vastly more social signals than all other pages. This is primarily due to the overlap between brand websites performing strongly in social networks and being allocated top positions by Google.”

How to Approach the Project:

A good starting point is to collaborate with your social media manager (or agency) to ask questions.

You need to identify what types of content have historically performed the best on each social media network.

Ask your social media manager to deep dive into ACME’s social media analytics and create a report for you.

Here’s a few more questions you should ask:

• Do you have a social media content calendar?
• Do you consistently like, comment, and share influencer posts?
• Do you use social media as a remarketing channel?
• Does ACME have a Facebook group?
• Do you run social media contests & giveaways?
• Do you use social media for customer service?
• Is social sharing integrated into your website content?
• Do you use video on social media?
• Does ACME’s social media content primarily sell to or add value to your audience?
• Do you have unique landing pages that correlate with your most popular social media content?
• Does ACME have its own hastags to differentiate your content from competitors on social?
• Have you incorporated viral marketing techniques into your social media strategy?

After clearly answering the baseline questions above, it’s time to start planning your new social media strategy.

How to Plan a Social Media Strategy:

Marketing strategy begins with research.

There’s plenty of social media tools that you can use to research and gather social media data.

But, in my experience … the first step of the research process is to research your competition.

Ideally, you want to be in the same room as your social media team when doing competitive research.

During your team’s research session, lead a group discussion and whiteboard your competitors’ social media SWOTs.

Also during the session, research popular social media pages outside of your industry and SWOT them as well.

Now you’re ready for tools.

In addition to pulling social media data and gathering competitive intelligence … SEO and content marketing research should inform your social media strategy.

Browse our recommended SEO, Content, and Social Media bookmarks to find toolsets to help you get started.

Next Steps:

Document ACME’s social media strategy based on the:

• 1. Social Media Content Performance Report
  2. 3 Objectives for Your Team
  3.  Answers to Your Baseline Questions
  4. Competitor SWOT Research
  5. and, the SEO & Content Marketing Research