Social media marketing strategy guide – 7 steps to success

A 7-steps to success guide teaching you how to run effective social media marketing campaigns

How will this social media marketing strategy guide help me and my business?

Social media marketing should now be an essential part of any digital marketing strategy due to the myriad of opportunities available across platforms. As with all opportunities though, if there’s no strategy and/or it’s unmanaged your social media marketing won’t be as effective as it could be and can even be damaging. This guide is aimed at helping you develop a strategic approach towards your social media marketing.

The key thing to realize about social media is that social is not a tactic or simply a range of channels – it can and should affect all aspects of your brand and communications. To be a success, it needs to be integrated and aligned with your brand strategy.

This 7 steps to success guide teaches you how to create and implement an effective plan to drive results from social media.

Who is this guide for?

This guide is designed for social media marketers, agencies, and business owners who want a clear, structured process for managing social media strategy. It’s ideal for anyone managing social media directly or marketing managers looking to improve consistency, accountability, and performance in the results from social channels.

How is the guide structured?

This guide covers all the issues you need to think about to create a strategy to deliver business results from social media marketing. It follows our 7 steps to success structure, made up of our recommended steps to create a strategy:

• Step 1. How to start thinking about business goals and review how it’s working now.
• Step 2. Creating an outline strategy and a vision to transform your organization.
• Step 3. Improving social media listening and reputation management.
• Step 4. Creating an engagement strategy.
• Step 5. Creating a communications strategy.
• Step 6. Implementing social media marketing through looking at common approaches you need to take across popular social media platforms.
• Step 7. Harnessing insights through social media marketing.

The guide also includes links to  further guidance and templates, such as our social media workbook and playbook, so you can apply your learnings directly for your own business activities.

Resource Details

• Authors: Dr. Dave Chaffey and Amelia Cooper
• Format: Downloadable PDF guide, 75 pages

About the authors

Dr. Dave Chaffey

Dave is co-founder of Smart Insights and creator of the Smart Insights RACE Planning Framework. He has consulted and trained for many businesses including large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses.  For his full profile, or to connect on LinkedIn or other social networks, see the About Dave Chaffey profile page on Smart Insights. Dave is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. He has been recognized by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing.

Amelia Cooper

Amelia Cooper is Head of Content at Smart Insights. She is responsible for managing the paid member content library and e-learning resources, as well as strategic planning to ensure customers get the most from their memberships. She is a University of Southampton and the Chartered Institute of Marketing graduate with over 10 years’ experience in digital marketing, specializing in content marketing.