With a strong social media strategy, you can steer your business goals in the ever-changing social landscape. Check out these five steps to building a successful social media strategy in 2021.

• Clearly define your end goals.

Have you ever got into a car and started driving somewhere without knowing where you were going? Probably not. Social media marketing is very similar in that if you just "do" things on Facebook or Twitter, you don't expect success. Social media strategy means understanding what your end goal is. It's important to be realistic and set challenging but achievable goals.

Here are some sample goals to consider for your social media strategy:

• Increase the total traffic to your website by 50% annually.
• 60% More Engagement Year over Year
• Influence 30% More YoY Conversions

With the ultimate goals in mind, whatever you do can be geared towards them to achieve this.

• Determine your target audience.

You have clear goals, and now is the time to consider who you are trying to activate to achieve those goals. There are many ways to define your target audience. First, I suggest you look at your current customer base and try to build demographics based on needs, costs, and whether you keep your current customer base or target a completely different customer base. For this ideal audience? No problem, there are tools to see who is naturally attracted to your brand through your website and social media feeds. Most social channels provide demographic information, but the most useful process (in my experience) to determine that your audience follows relevant social channels is described below.

• Facebook Insights / Audience Insights Facebook is the king of the data world and has a wealth of information about users who connect to your page, visit your website, and even interact with your content. Installing a Facebook pixel or uploading a mailing list will help you access this valuable data.
• Twitter Analytics Do you want to receive demographic and lifestyle data from people who follow your Twitter account? Visiting Twitter Analytics can provide a wealth of useful insights, and it also allows you to compare your followers with personalized people. If you think your target audience is active on Twitter, this is what you can find.
• Instagram Analytics is a relatively new set of data that allows you to check demographic data, content usage, and the location of your followers.
• LinkedIn analytics has always been a bit fragile, but if you are in the B2B space, you need to look at this data to understand the type of community you are building and whether it is suitable for your ideal audience and goals.
• Create diverse content strategies.

If I told you that Facebook has more daily active users today than in 1901, would you believe me? The gap between the amount of content created on social networking sites and the amount of content actually consumed is rapidly widening, and new media are becoming more and more popular. However, there are many ways to read, listen, and watch. Therefore, a diverse content strategy in 2021 will help you succeed.

• There is a dedicated social media advertising budget.

To truly reach your target audience and view the business results of social media, it is strongly recommended that you reserve a dedicated social media advertising budget. In the next five years, social media advertising is expected to account for more than 20% of marketing budgets. 2021 is a year when you should take social advertising seriously and invest in a strategic use budget. Using social advertising wisely will best attract the target audience they are most interested in.

• Think about mobile.

Did you know that it is estimated that people check their phones 150 times a day? People are so attached to mobile phones that a recent survey found that 68% of people experience vibrations when their mobile phones are not notified. People literally imagine that their phone vibrates because their brains have been waiting for it. Now that we are all addicted to mobile devices, does it make sense to adjust your 2021 social media strategy to mobile devices first? Research on mobile devices, 49% of people said that if the process is simpler, they will buy more products on mobile devices. As the customer journey is no longer linear and cross-device, we all need to make 2021 the year we make mobile-friendly content, social media ads, and websites. 80% of social media time is now spent on mobile devices, so in 2021, not optimizing social media strategies for mobile devices may be a big mistake.