The number one social media mistake most businesses make is spending too much time online. This means social media is cutting into company hours while potentially causing employee burn out. In order to avoid this path, it’s recommended that each business creates a social media content strategy.

Here’s how:

1. Determine the goal

In order to properly leverage social media, you need to set specific goals along with timelines to meet them. Remember, your goals and timelines need to be clear to your entire team. Keep this in mind, too: your goals should have the ability to be measured.

For example, convert 10 sales within 30 days on Facebook by posting 1x daily with a clear call-to-action.

The more specific your goals are, the easier it’ll be for your company to achieve results.

2. Identify your target audience

Using the available tools on social media to help your company learn about who is following you is the first place to start. Find out who these people are, where they’re coming from, when they’re logging on, and what they’re clicking on. It’s all valuable information.

The more you can find out about your audience, the better you’ll understand what they’re looking for, so that you can serve them.

3. Choose the best content

The best type of content to post depends on the type of service or product your company provides. For example, if you’re a  service-oriented business, share pictures or videos of people happily or effectively using your service.

One thing to steer clear of is sharing posts unrelated to your business or from a competitor. If there is something you find valuable and want to share, find a way to tie it to your business to show thought leadership.

4. Vary your content

The format of your content is different from the type of content you post. We recommend that you use a lot of variety in your content including: videos, pictures, articles, podcasts, and more.

Different content will lead to different types of engagement with your audience.

Treat this like A/B testing; see if you get more responses on Twitter versus Facebook versus Instagram, or comments on a blog post, etc.

5. Decide which platforms to use

Even though there are a lot of different social media platforms available, it does not make them all ideal for your business. Be strategic and focus on where your audience is to gain meaningful engagement and save you time.

Make your time count

Create a plan now and it’ll save you time in the long run. Outlining your goals clearly, identifying your audience, and creating the best optimized content, will put your business on the right track to start  seeing results.