social media strategy case study

Top 3 Social Media Case Studies to Inspire You in 2024

Discover three successful social media case studies from top brands and learn how to create one. Benefit from their strategies and mistakes to ensure the success of your next campaign.

Social media is every marketer’s safe haven for branding and marketing.

And why not?

More than 50% of the population is active on social media, and more are signing up with every passing second.

In a recent poll by HubSpot, 79% of the respondents have made a purchase after seeing a paid advertisement on social media .

This isn’t just a happenstance.

It’s the constant efforts that these brands put behind their dynamic presence on social media, that counts.

But how do they captivate their customers’ attention for this long despite the budding competitors?

Well, that’s something that we’ll reveal in this blog.

We shall assess 3 different social media case studies by top brands who are best in their niches. Their game is simple yet effective.

How effective? Let’s take a look.

Social Media Case Study 1: Starbucks

Starbucks and social media are a match made in heaven. Being one of the sensational brands online, they are stirring the social media world with their strong presence.

They brew the right content to elevate the experiences of their coffee lovers. But how do they nail marketing with perfection every single time? Let’s find out.

Starbucks in Numbers

Starbucks mastered the advertising transition from offline fame to online undertaking. They use each social media with a varied goal to target pitch-perfect reach. Drawing in more customers than ever before, they strike the right balance in content across multiple platforms.

Key Takeaways

Though not every company has a Starbucks budget to promote and spend lavishly on social media marketing, here are some quick takeaways that will undoubtedly help.

1. Chasing Trends

Be it any event, brands must take the advantage to showcase their viewpoints and opinions. Successful brands like Starbucks jump into the bandwagon and leave no stone unturned to make their voice count in the trending list.

Here’s one such social media campaign example from Starbucks.

Starbucks is a firm believer in LGBTQ+ rights. When the pride wave surged, Starbucks came forward and reinstated its belief through the #ExtraShotOfPride campaign.

Starbucks joined hands with the Born This Way Foundation to raise $250K to support the LGBTQ+ community. Throughout the social media campaign, they shared quotes and stories of various Starbucks employees cherishing the pride spirit.

2. Less is More

Social media is not about quantity but quality. Starbucks follows the “less is more” principle to maintain the quality standards, even in the caption. Spamming followers’ feeds with constant posting is a big no-no. Starbucks shares 5-6 posts per week on Instagram and 3-4 weekly posts on Facebook .

Creative and crisp! That’s what defines a Starbucks caption. This post with 111+k likes is no exception. Nothing is better than a minimalist post with a strong caption.

3. User Generated Content is the King

Ditch the worry of creating content every day when you can make use of user generated content. Starbucks makes sure to retweet or post its loyal customers’ content. User generated content postings starkly improve brand credibility.

Look at this Facebook post made out of customers’ tweets. The new Oatmilk drink got the appreciation shower by some, and Starbucks couldn’t resist but share it with others. It saved them efforts on content brainstorming, plus they got free PR.

4. Building Rapport

Building rapport with the audience is an unsaid rule to brand fame. Social media has now taken the onus of dispensing quality service by aiding brands in prompting faster replies .

Starbucks is always on its toe to respond to customers actively solving concerns, expressing gratitude, or reposting. That kind of proactive service definitely deserves love and adoration.

5. Loads of campaigns

Starbucks is known for its innovative social media campaigns. Be it a new product launch or any festivity around the corner, Starbucks always turns up with a rewarding campaign.

In this social media campaign example, Starbucks introduced #RedCupContest with prizes worth $4500 during Christmas of 2016. A new entry came every 14 seconds.

The grand total of entries was a whopping 40,000 in just two days. Indeed Starbucks knows how to get the most out of the festive fever.

6. Content mix

Last but not least, the content mix of Starbucks is inspiring. They create tailored content for every platform.

The official youtube channel of Starbucks comprises content in varied hues. From recipes to even series, Starbucks is the ultimate pioneer of experimenting.

Even on Instagram, they use all the features like Guides, Reels, and IGTV without affecting their eye-popping feed. Starbucks also follows the design consistency for its aesthetic content mix.

Starbucks has proved time and again to be a customer-centric brand with their unrelenting efforts.

Social Media Case Study 2: Ogilvy & Mather

Ogilvy & Mather needs no introduction. Founded by David Ogilvy, the ‘Father of Advertising’ in 1948, the agency continues the legacy of revolutionizing marketing long before the advent of social media.

The iconic agency helps several Fortune 500 companies and more make a massive impact on their audiences worldwide.

Ogilvy & Mather knows its game too well and never fails to astonish. Not just high-profile clients, Ogilvy nails its marketing with perfection every single time.

Keep on reading.

Ogilvy & Mather in Numbers

They use social media to target pitch-perfect reach. Drawing in more hype than ever before, they know how to strike the right balance and bring out emotions with their heart-warming campaigns.

Not every company has David Ogilvy’s legacy or even affluent clients to boast of, but here are some quick takeaways that will undoubtedly help you become a pro marketer.

1. Integrating Values

Ogilvy stands apart from the crowd, creating trends. They leave no stone unturned to communicate values.

Proud Whopper is one such social media campaign by Ogilvy that was an instant hit on the internet. People were offered whoppers in rainbow-colored wrappers, with a note that said, “Everyone’s the same on the inside.” This was to reinstate the importance of LGTQ+ rights.

The campaign got 1.1 billion impressions, $21 million of earned media, 450,000 blog mentions, 7 million views, and became the #1 trending topic on Facebook and Twitter.

Ogilvy made a remarkable #Tbt video to honor this momentous event showcasing their supremacy in creating impactful campaigns.

2. Quality over Quantity

Ogilvy believes in the “ Quality supremacy ” to maintain their high standards, even in post captions.

Arbitrary posting isn’t a part of their agenda. They share 5-7 posts on Instagram and Facebook weekly.

Direct and very precise. That’s what defines an Ogilvy caption. This post is no exception. They have exhibited the success of their client work by describing the motive behind the campaign and sharing the ad they created for raising awareness.

3. Adding Credibility

Won awards? It’s time to boast! Because that’s the most authentic way of establishing trust among your clients. It bears proof of your excellence.

Look at this pinned Twitter post. Ogilvy won the Global Network of the Year by the very prestigious London International Awards. It also earned Regional Network of the year for Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe.

What better than this to give its audience an idea about Ogilvy’s roaring success and undoubted potential?

4. Being Innovative

Building rapport with the audience is an unsaid rule to brand fame. And that’s why you need to tell stories. Social media has become an indispensable medium to spread your stories far and wide.

Ogilvy shares its historical tale of existence and how it has adapted to the challenges of the changing world. The team extensively talks about their adaptation to the latest trends to stay on top always.

5. Brainstorming Uniqueness

Being unique is what propels you on social media. People are always looking for brands that do something different from the herd. So your task each day is undeniably brainstorming unique content.

KFC wanted more of its customers to use its app. Well, Ogilvy and KFC decided to hide a secret menu in the app, which was a mass invitation for the download without being salesy at all. Results? Downloads up by 111% at launch!

6. Inspire Your Peeps

Inspiration is everywhere. But how do you channelize and mold it as per your brand guidelines? The renowned brands move their audience, filling them with a sense of realization. Who doesn’t seek validation? We all need quotes and inspiration to live by.

Ogilvy has dedicated its entire Pinterest profile to inspiration. The profile has numerous insightful infographics that encourage you to pursue marketing when your spirits run low. And that’s how it brings out the very essence of being the marketing leader: by inspiring its followers.

Got some good ideas for your branding? We have created templates and tools to help you execute them hassle-free. Tread on further and download the Trending Hashtag Kit for 2024 to get into action.

Social Media Case Study 3: PewDiePie

YouTube king with 111 Million subscribers on PewDiePie Channel, Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, has defied all norms. One of the most prolific content creators of the decade, Felix was on the list of World’s 100 Most Influential People by Time Magazine in 2016.

Needless to say, he is still relevant to this day and has a massive following on social media. Not just for branding, the Swedish YouTuber leveraged social media to give himself a new identity and opened doors to fame and a successful career.

What was the cause of this extraordinary trajectory?

Let’s find out.

PewDiePie in Numbers

PewDiePie likes to keep his social media raw and unfiltered. That’s why subscribers love to have a glimpse of his everyday life and follow him on other social media platforms as well. Here’s a quick snapshot of that.

Felix took the early bird advantage and started creating content when it wasn’t even popular practice. We can’t go back in time, but we can definitely learn a lot from his social media success.

1. Start Now

If you are still skeptical about making the first move, then don’t. Stop waiting and experiment. It’s better late than never.

Social media is in favor of those who start early because then you create surplus content to hold your audience . You quench their thirst for more quality content.

PewDiePie started creating videos in 2011 and live-streamed his gaming sessions with commentaries. It was something new and completely original. Ever since, he has continued to make thousands of videos that entertain his audience.

2. Gather Your Tribe

Being a content creator, PewDiePie knows his act of engaging his audience very well. He strives to build lasting connections and encourages two-way communication. As a result, his followers like to jump onto his exciting challenges.

Felix treasures his gaming community. He frequently asks his followers to take screenshots and turn them into funny memes . He gives them tasks to keep them engaged and amused .

3. Collaboration and Fundraising

Once you reach the stage and gain popularity, people want to see more of you with their favorite personalities. That’s what Felix does.

He collaborates with multiple YouTubers and brands and puts out exclusive content for his followers. He also goes for multiple fundraising campaigns to support vital causes and social wellbeing.

Here’s one such social media campaign example. PewDiePie supported the CRY foundation and raised $239000 in just one day to bring a positive impact for children in India. He thanked all for their contribution and taking active participation towards a noble cause.

4. Keep it Real

Felix likes to keep his content fluff-free. You get to witness raw emotions from an unfiltered life. This instantly appeals to the audience and makes the posts more relatable .

Apart from that, he also uses storytelling techniques to narrate his experiences, adding a very personalized touch to each of the videos.

Here’s a video of Felix where he and Ken from CinnamonToastKen discuss what can be possibly done with a million dollars around the world. The topic is quite intriguing.

More than 3.8M people have watched it and 216K of them liked it as well, proving that you need not always sweat to create complex content. Even the simplest ones can make the cut.

How to Write a Social Media Marketing Case Study

Many small businesses struggle when it comes to social media marketing. But guess what? Small businesses can slay the competition with a powerful tool: the social media case study.

These social media case studies are success stories that prove your hustle is paying off. Here’s how to weave a case study that showcases your small business wins:

Building Your Brag Book

• Pick Your Perfect Project:  Did a specific social media campaign drive a surge in sales? Highlight a product launch that went viral. Choose a project with impressive results you can showcase.
• DIY Interview:  Don’t have a fancy marketing team? No worries! Record yourself talking about your challenges, goals, and the strategies that made a difference.
• Data Dive:  Track down social media analytics! Look for growth in followers, website traffic driven by social media, or engagement metrics that show your efforts are working.

Now that you have all the ingredients, it’s time to cook a brilliant case study

Crafting Your Case Study

• Headline Hunt:  Grab attention with a clear and concise headline. Mention your business name and a key achievement (e.g., “From 100 to 10,000 Followers: How We Grew Our Bakery’s Social Buzz”).
• Subheading Scoop:  Briefly summarize your success story in a subheading, piquing the reader’s interest and highlighting key takeaways.
• The Business Struggle:  Be honest about the challenges you faced before tackling social media. This will build trust and allow other small businesses to connect.
• DIY Social Strategies:  Share the social media tactics you used, such as engaging content formats, community-building strategies, or influencer collaborations.
• Numbers Don’t Lie:  Integrate data and visuals to support your story. Include charts showcasing follower growth or screenshots of top-performing posts.
• Simple & Straightforward:  Use clear, concise language that’s easy to understand. Bullet points and short paragraphs make your case study digestible and showcase your professionalism.

Remember: Your social media case study is a chance to celebrate your achievements and build businesses. So, tell your story with pride, showcase your data-driven results, and watch your brand recognition soar

Social media campaigns are winning hearts on every platform. However, their success rates largely depend on your year-round presence. That’s why being consistent really does the trick.

We’re sure you must have learned a few things from the above-mentioned social media case studies .

To excel further at your social media marketing, use our FREE Trending Hashtag Kit and fill your calendar with everyday content ideas.

On downloading, you get 3000+ hashtags based on each day’s theme or occasion. You also get editable design templates for hassle-free social media posting.

What are you waiting for? Download now.

Frequently Asked Questions

🌟 How do I start a social media campaign idea?

Here’s how you can start a social media campaign:

• Finalize your campaign goals
• Brainstorm personas
• Pick a social media channel
• Research your competitors and audience
• Finalize an idea that’s in trend
• Promote the campaign
• Start the campaign
• Track the performance

🌟 What are the different types of social media campaigns?

Different types of social media campaigns are:

• Influencer Campaigns
• Hashtag Challenges

🌟 Why is social media campaign important?

Social media campaigns have various benefits:

• Boost traffic
• Better Conversions
• Cost-effective Marketing
• Lead Generation
• PR & Branding
• Loyal Followers

🌟 What are some of the best social media campaign tools?

Some of the best social media campaign tools are:

• SocialPilot

🌟 What are the top social media sites?

The top social media sites are:

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20 Best Social Media Marketing Case Study Examples

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How would you like to read the best social media marketing case studies ever published?

More importantly, how would you like to copy the best practices in social media marketing that are based on real-world examples and not just theory?

Below, you’ll find a list of the top 20 social media case study examples along with the results and key findings. By studying these social media marketing studies and applying the lessons learned on your own accounts, you can hopefully achieve similar results.

Table of Contents

Social Media Case Study Examples

793,500+ impressions for semrush on twitter  – walker sands social media case study, viral oreo super bowl tweet  – social media case study.

This is a popular case study to learn valuable insights for B2C marketing. During Super Bowl XLVII, the lights went out in the football stadium and the Oreo brand went viral with a single tweet that said “Power out? No problem. You can still dunk in the dark.” Read the historical account of that famous social media marketing moment from the people who lived through it so you can gather ideas on how to be better prepared for future social media campaigns that you can take advantage of in real-time.

Facebook Posting Strategy That Lead to 3X Reach & Engagement  – Buffer Social Media Case Study

In this social media case study example, you’ll find out how Buffer cut its Facebook posting frequency by 50% but increased the average weekly reach and engagement by 3X. Hint: The strategy had to do with creating fewer, better-quality posts, that were aimed at gaining higher engagement.

Achieving a 9 Million Audience by Automating Pinterest SEO  – Social Media Case Study

This is a good social media marketing case study for marketers who use Pinterest. Discover how Chillital went from 0 to 9 million engaged audience members and 268 million impressions. You’ll learn about the step-by-step research process of finding where your audience lives and breathes content, get a detailed analysis of how the author used Pinterest to generate brand awareness, and learn about using community-driven content promotion to scale social media results.

5X Increase In App Installs from TikTok  – Bumble Social Media Case Study

With the use of TikTok on the rise, social media case studies are now being shared about how to get the most value out of marketing on this platform. This one, in particular, is good to read because it explains how Bumble, a dating app, used TikTok more effectively by following the mantra, “Don’t Make Ads, Make TikToks”. This case study in social media marketing resulted in a 5X increase in app installs and a 64% decrease in cost-per-registration.

330% Increase In Reach for the Make a Wish Foundation – Disney Social Media Case Study

Check out this case study to find out how the Make-A-Wish Foundation increased its social media reach, audience, and engagement by partnering with Disney in a Share Your Ears campaign. The strategy was simple: ask people to take a photo of themselves wearing Mickey Mouse ears, post it on social media with the hashtag #ShareYouEars, and a $5 donation would be made to Make-A-Wish. The results were unbelievable with over 1.7 million posted photos and 420 million social media impressions. This led to a 15% audience increase on Facebook and a 13% audience increase on Instagram with a total increase of 330% in social media reach and a 554% increase in engagement during the campaign.

How 3 Schools Used Social Media Advertising to Increase Website Traffic & Applications – Social Media Case Study

Client case studies – lyfe marketing social media case study.

LYFE Marketing is a social media management company that helps clients gain new customers, generate sales, and increase brand exposure online. This page includes several of its top social media marketing case studies along with the approach and key results from each campaign. It’s packed with screenshots of the social media posts and engagement metrics so you can understand how each strategy worked for success, and get inspiration for your own campaigns.

3X Leads for a Local Business – Vertex Marketing Social Media Case Study

This is a good case study about finding the right balance between organic reach with social media posts and paid reach with social media marketing ads. You’ll find out how Vertex Marketing helped a local kitchen and bath remodeling business increase the number of leads by 3X. As for the return on investment (ROI) for this campaign, each lead for the client was worth about $10,000. The result was 6,628 audience reach, $12.43 average cost per conversion, and 18 conversions.

235% Increase In Conversions with Facebook Ads Funnel – Marketing 360 Social Media Case Study

This is one of Marketing 360’s case study examples that demonstrates the effectiveness of a Facebook ads sales funnel for B2B marketing. An ads funnel is a series of social media advertisements that target a specific audience at each stage of the buyer’s journey. By mapping out the buyer’s journey and creating a social media marketing ad campaign for each stage, you can guide new leads through the sales funnel and turn them into paying customers. This case study resulted in a 235% increase in conversions for a truck lift manufacturer.

15% Increase In Social Media Followers In 6 Months – Hootsuite Social Media Case Study

This is one of the best social media marketing case studies available online for businesses in the hospitality industry. Find out how Meliá Hotels International incorporated social media directly into its business model, both as a channel for client communication and as a platform to listen and learn about client needs and preferences. As a result, Meliá Hotel’s social media following grew from 5 million to 6 million in six months; an increase of more than 15%.

The Impact of Social Signals On SEO – Fat Stacks Social Media Case Study

This is a good case study for understanding the effect social media can have on SEO. By building links for a web page on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc, the rankings for long tail keywords improved in Google’s search engine.

96 Link Clicks for a Vacation Rental – Maria Peagler Social Media Case Study

As the title of this social media case study example suggests, you’ll learn how Maria Peagler helped a vacation rental get 96 clicks out of 3,274 audience reach on a single Facebook ad; about a 2.9% click-through rate (CTR). What’s most important about this B2C example is those clicks were of the highest quality the client could receive because Maria dug into the analytics to find out the best time during the day to post the ad and the perfect age groups to target while also using specific language to only drive clicks that would more likely convert.

Vienna Tourist Board Uses an Instagram Wall to Attract Tourists – Walls.io Social Media Case Study

Complete instagram marketing strategy for sixthreezero – vulpine interactive social media case study.

This is an in-depth case study on social media marketing with Instagram. You’ll discover how Vulpine Interactive was able to turn an existing, unmanaged account into a strong company asset for Sixthreezero, a bicycling company that uses ecommerce to drive sales. There was a lot of strategy and planning that went into growing the account by 39%, increasing website traffic from Instagram by over 300%, and achieving 77,659 total engagements. Inside, you’ll get the complete social strategy, tactics, key performance indicators (KPIs), and results

Twitter Marketing Success Stories – Social Media Case Study

How 3 big brands use pinterest for marketing – smartinsights social media case study.

This is a case study page by SmartInsights with an overview of how 3 big brands use Pinterest for marketing. Although it’s a quick read, you can learn some valuable tactics that Nordstrom, Sephora, and Petplan are using to market their brands on this social media platform.

25+ TikTok Social Campaign Results – Chatdesk Social Media Case Study

Reddit for business: meet your maker – social media case study.

Want to learn how to use Reddit to market your business online? This new social media marketing case study page by Reddit called “Meet Your Maker” showcases the people behind some of the most innovative and creative brand activations on our platform. Examples include campaigns by Adobe, Capcom, and noosa Yoghurt.

How Boston University Uses Snapchat to Engage with Students – Social Media Case Study

With more than 75% of college students using Snapchat on a daily basis, it became clear that Boston University had to make this platform a primary marketing channel. This social media case study outlines all of the top strategies Boston University uses to connect with prospective and current students.

What Is a Social Media Case Study?

A social media case study is an in-depth study of social media marketing in a real-world context. It can focus on one social media tactic or a group of social media strategies to find out what works in social media marketing to promote a product or service.

Are Case Studies Good for Social Media Marketing?

Summary for social media marketing case studies.

I hope you enjoyed this list of the best social media marketing case study examples that are based on real-world results and not just theory.

As you discovered, the social media case studies above demonstrated many different ways to perform well on social platforms. By studying the key findings from these case study examples, and applying the methods learned to your own accounts, you can hopefully achieve the same positive outcome. New social media case studies are being published every month and I’ll continue to update this list as they become available. So keep checking back to read the current sources of information on social media.

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5 outstanding social media marketing case studies

Do you read social media marketing case studies for inspiration? It’s always a good idea to benchmark against your competitors or pinch ideas from them, but it’s also worth looking at success stories from the biggest brands out there. You might not have their budget, but you can always gain inspiration from their campaigns.

Here are five of the best brands on social and what I think you can learn from them:

1.Mercedes Benz – Repeated, successful social media marketing campaigns

Mercedes Benz seem to win every time with their social media campaigns.  The one that stands out to me was back in 2013 when they created what I still believe to be one of the best Instagram marketing campaigns to date. Mercedes wanted to reach out to the younger audience so they hired five top Instagram photographers to each take the wheel of a new Mercedes CLA. Whoever got the most likes got to keep the car – so they all really worked at it!

By the end of the campaign, Mercedes has received:

• 87,000,000 organic Instagram impressions
• 2,000,000 Instagram likes
• 150 new marketing assets (stunning photos)

What lessons can you learn from this? Could you put your followers up for a challenge and make it into a competition or campaign?

• Can you do a competition that gets people trying out your product first?
• Think about your target audience. What is a prize they would value?
• Like Mercedes you could recruit bloggers/influencers via social media and get them blogging about your service or product. Whoever receives the most engagement wins .

2. Dove – Connecting with their target audience

Is it just me or do all the Dove marketing campaigns make you cry? If you’ve seen their Real Beauty sketches campaign, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Dove’s goal is to make women feel good about themselves. They know their target market and create content that tells a story that women can relate to.

Today I am… pic.twitter.com/VoAf2wRdwa — Dove UK & Ireland (@DoveUK) February 19, 2016

Dove did some research and found that 80 percent of women came across negative chatter on social media. Dove’s goal was to change that and make social media a more positive experience. As a result, Dove teamed up with Twitter and built a tool to launch the #SpeakBeautiful Effect, that breaks down which body- related words people use the most and when negative chatter appears during the day.

According to Dove, women were inspired by their message.

• #SpeakBeautiful was used more than 168,000 times
• Drove 800 million social media impressions of the campaign

Dove know their audience. Knowing your audience is the only way you will engage with them. The best way for this is creating personas. Knowing what life stage they are in, if they’re employed, what their interests are etc. will certainly help you when creating content. Then think about linking your audience to your brand values in order to create something just as successful as Dove’s campaign.

3. Nutella – Incredible content that makes you salivate

Each post makes you want to eat Nutella. There are a lot of people (including me) who take photos of their food before they eat it. Nutella does the same and it works. Nutella isn’t afraid to be fun and creative with different ingredients. Nutella is just a chocolate spread yet they manage to have fun with it. Do you, or could you, have a bit more fun with your brand?

Here are some ideas for having fun with your brand:

• Are you on different social media channels? If you’re B2B you might not think that Instagram is for you, but it can be a great way to demonstrate your brand values by telling a story. Fedex is a great example of this, showing images of their trucks always on the move. This tells a story that they are always delivering and that is the key message we take away.
• Key influencers/bloggers can be a great way to  different types of content and to see how they have fun with your brand (if this is new to you, read our post on the rise of the social media influencer ).
• Instead of posting behind-the-scenes photos at your head office, can you encourage your followers to share their experiences with your brand? Maybe host an event or go out and meet them.

Take your #breakfast bread pudding to the next level with #Nutella ! 😉 pic.twitter.com/k0ko5Nm9iX — Nutella (@NutellaGlobal) May 5, 2016

4. Oreo – Smart content planning and timely delivery

Oreo is another brand that is known for their creative social media marketing. They must have a big design team to produce their content, but it works! They are consistent with their branding and manage to catch onto real time events. We all remember when the lights went out at the Super Bowl and during the half hour blackout Oreo tweeted out:

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC — OREO Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

This was retweeted over 15,000 times.  Are you thinking outside the box about your brand? Plan ahead for events coming up that you might be able to jump on to.

Do you plan your social media content out? If you’re in B2B and don’t currently create content read here for some B2B content marketing tips to help you get started, or check out our B2B marketing strategy tips ebook for 2021.

It’s always a good idea to prepare content ahead of time. If you can schedule content on a monthly basis – perfect, but if not bi-weekly is great. That way you can check what events are coming up and plan content around them. This gives you time for any ad hoc creative to be done, such as jumping on real-time events like the Oreo blackout example above.

5. Airbnb – Stunning imagery and UGC

What might look like a visual travel blog,  Airbnb ’ s content attracts fans with their visually compelling posts. On Instagram, they post user-generated photos from its hosts and guests. The content embraces their new campaign of ‘Don’t just go there, Live there’ which is captured through real photography. Each post receives high engagement, between 3,000 and 14,000 Instagram likes.

This is a great example of thinking slightly outside the box. Airbnb is all about accommodation. They don’t just post images of the inside of people’s homes. Seeing the culture and images of places all over the world comes with the experience of where you stay and that’s what connects with people. Think about your brand: are you just posting about the product/ service itself? Why not tell your followers a story instead?

Thanks for reading. I hope by reading these five social media marketing case studies it has spiked some inspiration! If you need any help with your social media advertising , influencer marketing , or other aspects of your social media strategy, feel free to contact us .

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Case Study: Creating a Social Media Strategy

This case study represents the organic growth we saw from a client when implementing a custom social media strategy. Before partnering with Parqa Marketing, the company had occasionally been active on social media but lacked consistency and a true social strategy to measure their efforts. Our partnership included writing two custom blogs a month, social media management, and monthly reporting.

Case Study Breakdown

The Challenge:  A national recruiting firm with 10 different specialized practice areas wanted to build a social media presence to increase brand awareness and stand out in a crowded market.

Our goal: To develop a social media and content strategy that would attract and engage new and existing audiences while building credibility, showcasing thought leadership and focusing in on their expertise.

Free On-Demand Webinar: How Content Marketing Can Grow Your Business ➢

1. Background Research

Before we started to build a strategy for the future, we had to look at what had been done in the past by conducting an audit. An audit informs us which profiles needed to be optimized, what strategies have been executed in the past, and what the client’s competitors were doing from a strategic standpoint. After analyzing this information, we were able to start developing the strategy outline.

2. Building the Strategy Outline

When beginning our research to develop the strategy, we had to start off by determining a few basics of any social media strategy. This included answering the who, what, when, where and why .

• Who: Define the target audience
• What: Determine what KPIs will be measured
• When: Discover optimal posting days/time for our audience
• Where: Choosing the correct social media platforms / where is your target audience
• Why: Set the correct goals that align with the overall business objectives

These are questions that will help you build and define your strategy.

3. Understanding Your Target Audience

We broke our audience down into three different markets: clients, candidates, and brand advocates.

More importantly than identifying these markets was to discover what’s important to them. What images and content attract them? What are their pain points? What are they looking for on social media channels?

4. Testing the Content

Creating and testing content is a big part of having a successful social media strategy, it’s a process that you should continuously be fine-tuning. Understanding your audience is vital when developing a social media strategy that will resonate with the audience.

Throughout testing and research, we found that employee advocacy was a large part of the client’s brand. Their employees loved engaging with content that promoted the brand, what it stands for and shares what they do.

Related Post: Content Marketing: Your 3-Step Recipe for Lead Generation ➢

5. The Solution

Parqa devised a social media strategy that aligned with the client’s overall marketing goals. The strategy targeted their already active audience while also bringing creative ideas into the mix that would generate interest of new audiences.

To increase our client’s online presence, we knew we had created content that our audience would be interested in. We broke down the client’s target audiences into three main groups: candidates, clients, and employee advocates. This way we had an audience of brand advocates but also had a strategy to reach those who may not know about the brand and what they do.

• 137% Engagement Increased
• 545% Increase in Website Traffic from Social Media
• 100% Increase in LinkedIn Followers

Businesses are using social media in different ways, posting to post is merely a short activity to keep your brand presence alive, but when you implement and strategy, you can use social media to reach goals.

Contact us today to learn more about how Parqa Marketing can create a social media strategy for your company.

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How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy in 9 Easy Steps [Free Template]

Creating your social media marketing strategy doesn’t need to be painful. Create an effective plan for your business in 9 simple steps.

A social media marketing strategy is a summary of everything you plan to do and hope to achieve on social media. It guides your actions and lets you know whether you’re succeeding or failing.

The more specific your plan is, the more effective it will be. Keep it concise. Don’t make it so lofty and broad that it’s unattainable or impossible to measure.

In this post, we’ll walk you through a nine-step plan to create a winning social media strategy of your own. We’ve even got expert insights from Amanda Wood, Hootsuite’s Senior Manager of Social Marketing.

How to create a social media strategy:

Bonus: Get a free social media strategy template   to quickly and easily plan your own strategy. Also use it to track results and present the plan to your boss, teammates, and clients.

What is a social media marketing strategy?

A social media strategy is a document outlining your social media goals, the tactics you will use to achieve them and the metrics you will track to measure your progress.

Your social media marketing strategy should also list all of your existing and planned social media accounts along with goals specific to each platform you’re active on. These goals should align with your business’s larger digital marketing strategy.

Finally, a good social media plan should define the roles and responsibilities within your team and outline your reporting cadence.

Create. Schedule. Publish. Engage. Measure. Win.

Creating your own social media marketing strategy (video guide)

No time to read the whole article? Let Amanda, Hootsuite’s own Senior Manager of Social Media Marketing, guide you through our free social media marketing strategy template in less than 10 minutes:

How to create a social media marketing strategy in 9 steps

Step 1. choose goals that align to business objectives, set s.m.a.r.t. goals.

The first step to creating a winning social media strategy is to establish clear objectives and goals. Without goals, you have no way to measure success and return on investment (ROI) .

Each of your social media marketing goals should be SMART : s pecific, m easurable, a ttainable, r elevant and t ime-bound.

Psst: Need help getting started? We’ve got social strategy guides for small businesses , financial services , government , higher education , healthcare , real estate , law firms , and non-profits .

Oh, and if you need examples of smart social media goals , we’ve got you covered there too.

Once you’ve decided on your goals, track them in a social media strategy doc — grab our free template if you don’t have one already.

Track meaningful metrics

Vanity metrics like number of followers and likes are easy to track, but it’s hard to prove their real value. Instead, focus on things like engagement, click-through, and conversion rates.

For inspiration, take a look at these 19 essential social media metrics .

You may want to track different goals for different social media networks, or even different uses for each network.

For example, if you use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your website, you would measure click-throughs. If Instagram is for brand awareness, you might track the number of Instagram Story views. And if you advertise on Facebook, cost-per-click (CPC) is a common success metric.

Social media goals should align with your overall marketing objectives. This makes it easier to show the value of your work and secure buy-in from your boss.

Start developing a successful social media marketing plan by writing down at least three goals for social media.

“ It’s easy to get overwhelmed by deciding what to post and which metrics to track, but you need to focus on what you want to get out of social media to begin with,” says Amanda Wood, Hootsuite’s Senior Manager of Social Marketing. “Don’t just start posting and tracking everything: match your goals to your business, and your metrics to your goals.”

Step 2. Learn everything you can about your audience

Get to know your fans, followers, and customers as real people with real wants and needs, and you will know how to target and engage them on social media.

When it comes to your ideal customer, you should know things like:

• Average income
• Typical job title or industry

Here’s a simple guide and template for creating audience/buyer personas .

Don’t forget to document this information in your strategy doc!

Social media analytics can also provide a ton of valuable information about who your followers are, where they live, and how they interact with your brand on social media. These insights allow you to refine your strategy and better target your audience.

Jugnoo, an Uber-like service for auto-rickshaws in India, used Facebook Analytics to learn that 90% of their users who referred other customers were between 18- and 34-years-old, and 65% of that group was using Android. They used that information to target their ads, resulting in a 40% lower cost per referral.

Check out our guide to using social media analytics and the tools you need to track them .

Step 3. Get to know your competition

Odds are your competitors are already using social media, and that means you can learn from what they’re doing.

Conduct a competitive analysis

A competitive analysis allows you to understand who the competition is and what they’re doing well (and not so well). You’ll get a good sense of what’s expected in your industry, which will help you set social media targets of your own.

It will also help you spot opportunities and weaknesses you can document in your social strategy doc.

Maybe one of your competitors is dominant on Facebook, for example, but has put little effort into X (Twitter) or Instagram. You might want to focus on the social media platforms where your audience is underserved, rather than trying to win fans away from a dominant player.

Use social media listening

Social listening is another way to keep an eye on your competitors.

Do searches of the competition’s company name, account handles, and other relevant keywords on social media. Find out what they’re sharing and what other people are saying about them. If they’re using influencer marketing, how much engagement do those campaigns earn them?

Pro tip : Use Hootsuite Streams to monitor relevant keywords, hashtags and accounts in real-time.

Try Hootsuite for free. You can cancel anytime.

As you track, you may notice shifts in how your competitors and industry leaders are using social media. You may come across new, exciting trends. You might even spot specific social content or a campaign that really hits the mark—or totally bombs.

Use this kind of intel to optimize and inform your own social media marketing strategy.

Just don’t go overboard on the spy tactics, Amanda advises. “ Make sure you aren’t ALWAYS comparing yourself to the competition — it can be a distraction. I’d say checking in on a monthly basis is healthy. Otherwise, focus on your own strategy and results.”

Step 4. Do a social media audit

If you’re already using social media, take stock of your efforts so far. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What’s working, and what’s not?
• Who is engaging with you?
• What are your most valuable partnerships?
• Which networks does your target audience use?
• How does your social media presence compare to the competition?

Once you collect that information, you’ll be ready to start thinking about ways to improve.

We’ve created an easy-to-follow social media audit guide and template to walk you through each step of this process.

Your audit should give you a clear picture of what purpose each of your social accounts serves. If the purpose of an account isn’t clear, think about whether it’s worth keeping.

To help you decide, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is my audience here?
• If so, how are they using this platform?
• Can I use this account to help achieve my goals?

Asking these tough questions will keep your social media strategy focused.

Look for impostor accounts

During the audit, you may discover fake accounts using your business name or the names of your products.

These imposters can be harmful to your brand—never mind that they’re capturing followers that should be yours.

You may want to get your accounts verified too to ensure your fans know they are dealing with the real you.

Here’s how to get verified on:

• X (Twitter)

Step 5. Set up accounts and improve profiles

Decide which networks to use.

As you decide which social networks to use, you will also need to define your strategy for each.

Benefit Cosmetics’ social media manager, Angela Purcaro, told eMarketer : “For our makeup tutorials … we’re all about Snapchat and Instagram Stories. [X], on the other hand, is designated for customer service.”

Hootsuite’s own social team even designates different purposes for formats within networks. On Instagram, for example, they use the feed to post high-quality educational infographics and product announcements and Stories to cover live events or quick social media updates.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hootsuite 🦉 (@hootsuite)

Pro tip : Write out a mission statement for each network. A one-sentence declaration to keep you focused on a specific goal.

Example: “We will use X for customer support to keep email and call volumes down.”

Or: “We will use LinkedIn for promoting and sharing our company culture to help with recruitment and employee advocacy.”

One more: “We will use Instagram to highlight new products and repost quality content from influencers.”

If you can’t create a solid mission statement for a particular social media channel, you may want to ask yourself if it’s worth it.

Note : While larger businesses can and do tackle every platform, small businesses may not be able to — and that’s ok! Prioritize social platforms that will have the most impact on your business and make sure your marketing team has the resources to handle content for those networks. If you need help focusing your efforts, check out our 18-minute social media plan .

Set up your profiles

Once you’ve decided which networks to focus on, it’s time to create your profiles. Or improve existing ones so they align with your strategy.

• Make sure you fill out all profile fields
• Include keywords people would use to search for your business
• Use consistent branding (logos, images, etc.) across networks so your profiles are easily recognizable

Pro tip : Use high-quality images that follow the recommended dimensions for each network. Check out our always-up-to-date social media image size cheat sheet for quick reference.

We’ve also got step-by-step guides for each network to walk you through the process:

• Create a Facebook business page
• Create an Instagram business account
• Create a TikTok account
• Create a X (Twitter) business account
• Create a Snapchat account
• Create a LinkedIn Company Page
• Create a Pinterest business account
• Create a YouTube channel

Don’t let this list overwhelm you. Remember, it’s better to use fewer channels well than to stretch yourself thin trying to maintain a presence on every network.

Optimize your profiles (and content) for search

Never heard of social SEO ? It’s time to learn.

44% of Gen Z consumers use social platforms to research their purchase decisions, which means it’s extra critical that your channels are optimized for social search.

That means making sure your profile names are clear and descriptive, you’re including relevant hashtags and keywords in your bio and on every post, and you’re using features like alt text and captions to include your target keywords as naturally as possible.

Step 6. Find inspiration

While it’s important that your brand be unique, you can still draw inspiration from other businesses that are great on social.

“ I consider it my job to stay active on social: to know what’s trending, which campaigns are winning, what’s new with the platforms, who’s going above and beyond,” says Amanda. “This might be the most fun step for you, or the hardest one, but it’s just as crucial as the rest of them.”

Social media success stories

You can usually find these on the business section of the social network’s website. ( Here’s Facebook’s , for example.)

Case studies can offer valuable insights that you can apply to your own social media plan.

Award-winning accounts and campaigns

You could also check out the winners of The Facebook Awards or The Shorty Awards for examples of brands that are at the top of their social media game.

For learning and a laugh, check out Fridge-Worthy, Hootsuite’s bi-weekly awards show highlighting brands doing smart and clever things on social media.

Your favorite brands on social media

Who do you enjoy following on social media? What do they do that compels people to engage and share their content?

National Geographic, for example, is one of the best on Instagram, combining stunning visuals with compelling captions.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by National Geographic (@natgeo)

Then there’s Shopify. The ecommerce brand uses Facebook to sell themselves by showcasing customer stories and case studies.

And Lush Cosmetics is a great example of superior customer service on X. They use their 280 characters to answer questions and solve problems in an extremely charming and on-brand way.

Source: lushcosmetics on X

Notice that each of these accounts has a consistent voice, tone, and style. That’s key to letting people know what to expect from your feed. That is, why should they follow you? What’s in it for them?

Consistency also helps keep your content on-brand even if you have multiple people on your social media team.

For more on this, read our guide on establishing a compelling brand voice on social media .

Ask your followers

Consumers can also offer social media inspiration.

What are your target customers talking about online? What can you learn about their wants and needs?

If you have existing social channels, you could also ask your followers what they want from you. Just make sure that you follow through and deliver what they ask for.

Step 7. Create a social media content calendar

Sharing great content is essential, of course, but it’s equally important to have a plan in place for when you’ll share content to get the maximum impact.

Your social media content calendar also needs to account for the time you spend interacting with the audience (although you need to allow for some spontaneous engagement as well).

Set your posting schedule

Your social media content calendar lists the dates and times at which you will publish types of content on each channel. It’s the perfect place to plan all of your social media activities—from images, link sharing, and re-shares of user-generated content to blog posts and videos. It includes both your day-to-day posting and content for social media campaigns.

Your calendar also ensures your posts are spaced out appropriately and published at the best times to post .

Pro tip: You can plan your whole content calendar and get recommended best times to post on every network based on your past engagement rate, impressions, or link click data in Hootsuite.

Hootsuite’s Best Time to Publish feature

Determine the right content mix

Make sure your content strategy and calendar reflect the mission statement you’ve assigned to each social profile, so that everything you post is working to support your business goals.

(We know, it’s tempting to jump on every meme, but there should always be a strategy behind your social media marketing efforts!)

You might decide that:

• 50% of content will drive traffic back to your website
• 25% of content will be curated from other sources
• 20% of content will support lead-generation goals (newsletter sign-ups, ebook downloads, etc.)
• 5% of content will be about your company culture

Placing these different post types in your content calendar will ensure you maintain the right mix.

If you’re starting from scratch and you’re not sure what types of content to post, try the 80-20 rule :

• 80% of your posts should inform, educate, or entertain your audience
• 20% can directly promote your brand.

You could also try the social media content marketing rule of thirds :

• One-third of your content promotes your business, converts readers, and generates profit.
• One-third of your content shares ideas and stories from thought leaders in your industry or like-minded businesses.
• One-third of your content is personal interactions with your audience

Whatever you decide on, be sure to document it in your strategy doc.

Don’t post too much or too little

If you’re starting a social media marketing strategy from scratch, you may not have figured out how often to post to each network for maximum engagement yet.

Post too frequently and you risk annoying your audience. But, if you post too little, you risk looking like you’re not worth following.

Start with these posting frequency recommendations:

• Instagram (feed): 3-7 times per week
• TikTok: 3-5 times per week
• Facebook: 1-2 times per day
• X (Twitter): 1-5 times per day
• LinkedIn: 1-5 times per day

Pro tip : Once you have your social media content calendar planned out, use a scheduling tool to prepare messages in advance rather than updating constantly throughout the day.

We might be biased, but we think Hootsuite is the best social media management tool. You can schedule social media posts to every network and the intuitive calendar view gives you a full picture of all your social activity each week.

Try It Free

Step 8. Create compelling content

Remember those mission statements you created for each channel in Step 5? Well, it’s time to go a bit deeper, a.k.a. provide some examples of the type of content you’ll post to fulfill your mission on each network.

If you’re not sure what to post, here’s a long list of social media content ideas to get you started. Or (to make it even easier) you can use an AI tool like OwlyWriter to generate on-brand content in a flash.

The idea here is to:

• Keep your content aligned with the purpose of each network;
• Show other stakeholders (if applicable) what kind of content they can expect to see on each network.

This last point especially will help you avoid any tension when your colleagues want to know why you haven’t posted their case study/whitepaper/blog post to TikTok yet. It’s not in the strategy, Linda!

Ideally, you will generate content types that are both suited to the network and the purpose you’ve set out for that network.

For example, you wouldn’t want to waste time posting brand awareness tweets if you’ve designated X/Twitter for primarily customer support. And you wouldn’t want to post super polished corporate video ads to TikTok, as users expect to see short, unpolished videos on that platform.

It might take some testing over time to figure out which type of content works best on which type of network, so prepare to update this section frequently.

We won’t lie: content creation isn’t as easy as everyone not on the social team seems to think. But if you’re struggling, Amanda suggests going back to basics.

The first question to ask is: is there cohesion between your content types? Is your content providing value? Do you have a good mix of entertaining, or educational content? What does it offer that makes a person stop and spend time? Creating a few different content pillars or categories that encompass different aspects of storytelling for your brand, and what you can offer your audience is a good start.

This brings us to Step 9.

Step 9. Track performance and make adjustments

Your social media marketing strategy is a hugely important document for your business, and you can’t assume you’ll get it exactly right on the first try.

As you start to implement your plan and track your results, you may find that some strategies don’t work as well as you’d anticipated, while others are working even better than expected.

That’s why it’s important to document your progress along the way.

Look at performance metrics

In addition to the analytics within each social network (see Step 2), you can use UTM parameters to track social visitors as they move through your website, so you can see exactly which social posts drive the most traffic to your website.

Benchmark your results

You’ve got your numbers, but how do they stack up to the competition in your industry? Industry benchmarks are a great way to evaluate your performance against other businesses in your category.

If you’ve got Hootsuite Analytics , you can use our built-in social media benchmarking tool to compare the performance of your social accounts against the average of brands in your industry with just a couple of clicks.

You can set up custom timeframes, switch between networks — Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and TikTok — and look up benchmarks for metrics like followers, audience growth rate, engagement rate, clicks, shares, and much more.

You’ll also find resources to improve your performance  right in the summary section:

Re-evaluate, test, and do it all again

Once this data starts coming in, use it to re-evaluate your strategy regularly. You can also use this information to test different posts, social marketing campaigns, and strategies against one another. Constant testing allows you to understand what works and what doesn’t, so you can refine your social media marketing strategy in real time.

You’ll want to check the performance of all your channels at least once a week and get to know the basics of social media reporting so you can track your growth over time.

Pro tip: If you use Hootsuite, you can review the performance of all your posts on every network in one place. Once you get the hang of checking your analytics, you may even want to customize different reports to show specific metrics over a variety of different time periods.

Surveys can also be a great way to find out how well your social media strategy is working. Ask your followers, email list, and website visitors whether you’re meeting their needs and expectations, and what they’d like to see more of. Then make sure to deliver on what they tell you.

Finalizing your social media strategy

Spoiler alert: nothing is final.

Social media moves fast. New networks emerge, others go through demographic shifts.

Your business will go through periods of change as well.

All of this means that your social media marketing strategy should be a living document that you review and adjust as needed. Refer to it often to stay on track, but don’t be afraid to make changes so that it better reflects new goals, tools, or plans.

When you update your social strategy, make sure to watch our 5-step video on how to updating your social media strategy for 2024:

Social media strategy template

Ready to start documenting? Grab your free social media strategy template below!

What’s next? When you’re ready to put your plan into action, we’re here to help…

Save time managing your social media marketing strategy with Hootsuite. From a single dashboard you can easily:

• Plan, create, and schedule posts to every network
• Track relevant keywords, topics, and accounts
• Stay on top of engagement with a universal inbox
• Get easy-to-understand performance reports and improve your strategy as needed

Try Hootsuite for Free

With files from Shannon Tien .

Do it better with Hootsuite , the all-in-one social media tool. Stay on top of things, grow, and beat the competition.

Become a better social marketer.

Get expert social media advice delivered straight to your inbox.

Christina Newberry is an award-winning writer and editor whose greatest passions include food, travel, urban gardening, and the Oxford comma—not necessarily in that order.

Amanda Wood is a senior social marketing professional who combines analytical and creative thinking to build brands.

As head of social at Hootsuite, Amanda oversees the global social strategy encompassing organic and paid social on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn, a social engagement and listening strategy, and an employee advocacy program.

As the leader of a high-performing social team, she has extensive experience collaborating with creatives to bring campaigns to life on social and drive business results.

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Best social media marketing strategies and case studies in 2023

Whether your business is old or new, big or small, social media should be an integral part of your marketing mix. Social media holds immense potential in terms of effective and cost efficient marketing. It continues to grow, especially in the post covid world. Many businesses were forced to develop online marketing tactics.

However, it can be difficult to get the right strategies in place. We'll talk about some of the important points you should keep in mind before going forward with a social media marketing strategy, and some of the top social media marketing strategies you can employ - and then show you some of the best social media marketing case studies.

Important things to keep in mind when doing social media

Research your target audience.

The importance of knowing your audience can never be underestimated. There is no point in doing any kind of marketing campaign without knowing the basic traits of your customers/users. Understanding your audience incorporates anything and everything starting from what they like/dislike, what are their hobbies, how do they spend their leisure time or which pages they follow on social media. All these questions can give you meaningful insights into your users, that can further allow you to concentrate your efforts in the right direction.

Define your KPIs

KPIs or key performance indicators, as the name suggests are the most important metrics to measure the success of your campaigns. Without having your KPIs figured out before launching a campaign is just like driving a car without knowing the final destination. Your KPIs will give you the right point of reference and help you to understand how far you have come in terms of your campaign. Your KPIs can be different for different campaigns; for example with a brand awareness campaign, some of the KPIs that you would want to focus on would be impressions, clicks, likes/shares etc. Meanwhile for a conversion focused campaign, the KPIs you would want to look at would be conversions, click-through-rate , cost-per-click etc.

Rethink your content strategy

2023 is a year of innovation with marketing. Video continues to become a larger and larger part of digital marketing and not just with reels and TikToks. We might also see more widespread adoption of the metaverse. It's important to stay on top of trends, and evolve your marketing and content strategy as innovation happens. It's also important to remember your brand strategy and guidelines! Keep a human touch in your interactions and keep it simple to understand.

Assess your performance

It is not an easy task to deliver with every campaign that you undertake. Some might return good results while others might just end up being a sunk cost. But one thing that you want to make sure of is to not repeat the same mistakes repeatedly. You should visit your old campaigns and understand what went right or wrong. Assess your performance month over month, and week over week, and see how you are progressing towards your goals.

If you have checked the boxes on the above points, then you are already on your way to creating a successful social media campaign. Now let's see what are some of the top social media marketing strategies that you can incorporate into your marketing mix.

Top social media marketing strategies

Creating educational content.

Creating value for your customers should always be a number one priority. Users and consumers usually have lots of options beyond your brand, and are easily swayed to a different one. The only thing that holds onto your customers is the value you create for them. With social, one way to do this is to create content that educates them. It could be about anything that is related to your product. For example, if your brand sells a social media co-pilot, create posts about great social media marketing tactics.

Producing different types of content forms

Uploading a similar picture to Instagram every day just won't work. You need to have diversity amongst your content to regularly engage your audience. Experiment with different posting themes, media, and image/video quality. A great tactic can be to create a content pillar such as a podcast or blog, where you can chop multiple bits of micro-content into different social media posts. It's also a great opportunity to tells your users stories, or humanize your brand by giving your customers stories about your employees. You can always shoot behind the scenes footage too, which often gets more engagement that the polished stuff. Users love unique and fresh content.

Teaming up with micro influencers

Every marketer knows the potential of influencer marketing, but due to the high saturation in the influencer market niche, it is hard to get a cost efficient ROI. It is an opportunity for you as a brand to look in a different direction. Micro influencers are influencers with a smaller following but they have a higher engagement with their followers as they can interact with their smaller follower count more easily as compared to other big influencers.

Keeping a human touch

Social media in itself has the word social as we do in our identity of being social beings. The whole aspect of social media is to create a social sphere of interaction between different individuals over a medium. You should always focus on interacting with your users like you would do with a friend. Keep the content and the conversations as human as possible, users don’t like the feeling of talking to a robot or a mechanical entity. Post content that you think would create value for a fellow human user. The best possible way to implement this strategy would be to put yourself in the shoes of your users. Imagine how you would feel if you would have to go through the content or the copy that you had put on your posts.

Taking advantage of technology

We are in the 21st century and it’s about time that we start acting like it. We witness so many technological advancements all around us. Recently, the talks of the metaverse. It is real and it’s going to be knocking at your doorstep sooner than you had expected. Brands need to incorporate a better UX for their users. For example, if you are a makeup brand, think about having an AR (augmented reality) interface for your users where they can visit and try different shades of lipstick right on your application. Another feature which you can add is AI powered chatbots, that allow for users coming into site to have a 24/7 source of assistance that can help your users to find information about your product.

Case Studies: Top social media marketing strategies

What a better way to understand a concept than reading about examples or case studies about some of the best campaigns undertaken from big brands on social media.

Starbucks – #Whatsyourname

This particular campaign was undertaken by Starbucks UK to put a light on the social cause of supporting gender diverse youths. This campaign was focused on creating educational content for its users so that they can create an awareness for a social topic through their campaigns. Starbucks partnered up with the gender diversity charity Mermaids to better understand gender diverse youths and create an awareness campaign around it.

Apple - #ShotOniPhone

In 2015 Apple launch this campaign for users to post on Instagram with the #ShotOniPhone hashtag for a chance to be featured on one of Apple's 10,000 billboards around the world. They doubled down in 2017 with opening up their own Instagram account to keep the momentum going. As of the time of posting this, the hashtag as about 27M entries.

Spotify - #SpotifyWrapped

Every year in December everyone's timelines are full of their friends' Spotify statistics for the year. This genius campaign plays on the fact that music is so special and personal to everyone, and they want to share their music taste with their friends. It's the equivalent of jumping into your friend's car and they won't stop playing their new Bad Bunny CD (I might be that friend…).

We are still building the coso.ai platform, but soon it will link in with your media library and analyse the latest social trends to automatically populate your social media content calendar with much of the content talked about in this post. If you want to get early access, you can join the waitlist on our homepage .

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· Mar 6, 2023

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How to Write a Social Media Marketing Campaign Case Study

In the world of sharing knowledge, few tools are as powerful as a case study. It’s like a story that brings a specific situation to life, helping us understand challenges and solutions across different fields. Imagine getting a peek into the minds of experts as they tackle problems and unveil their well-crafted solutions.

Among these tools, social media case studies are like hidden gems, offering insights into succeeding in the ever-changing realm of digital marketing. They’re more than just stories; they’re practical tools that encourage potential clients to see themselves achieving similar feats. 

But let’s be honest, even if you’re pretty savvy about social media, turning that knowledge into an engaging case study can be a bit daunting when you’re not sure where to begin. 

Don’t worry, in this guide, we’ll break down the process and show you how to create a captivating social media case study. Through simple steps, we’ll dive into the heart of the matter, helping you put together a case study that truly shines.

Why are social media marketing case studies beneficial?

Social media marketing case studies serve as powerful tools that offer a range of benefits for both businesses and potential clients. Here’s why these case studies are worth their weight in digital gold:

• Real-World Proof of Success : Social media case studies provide tangible evidence of your ability to deliver results. They showcase how your strategies, products, or services have positively impacted a real client’s business, serving as a testament to your expertise.
• Relatable and Persuasive : Potential clients are more likely to resonate with a case study that mirrors their own challenges and aspirations. These stories humanize your brand and offerings, making it easier for prospects to connect with your solutions.
• Trust Builder : Case studies function as a form of social proof, demonstrating your track record of success. When potential clients see that others have achieved their goals with your assistance, it instills confidence in your capabilities.
• Insight into Strategy : Social media case studies often delve into the strategies employed to achieve success. This insight not only educates potential clients about your approach but also positions you as an industry thought leader willing to share valuable information.
• Storytelling Impact : Humans are wired for stories. Social media case studies follow a narrative structure, making them engaging and memorable. When people remember your case study, they remember your brand.
• Versatile Marketing Assets : Case studies can be repurposed across various marketing channels. You can share them on your website, use them in email campaigns, showcase them on social media, and even incorporate them into presentations or proposals.
• Improved Sales Conversions : A well-crafted social media case study can be the tipping point that persuades potential clients to choose your services over competitors. It demonstrates the practical application of your offerings and their potential benefits.
• Relationship Builder : Sharing a client’s success story through a case study is a way to acknowledge and celebrate their achievements. This can foster strong, long-term relationships with clients who feel valued and appreciated.

In essence, social media marketing case studies bridge the gap between theory and practice, offering a concrete depiction of how your strategies and solutions yield real-world results. By showcasing your expertise in action, these case studies become a cornerstone of your marketing efforts, attracting and convincing potential clients that you have what it takes to make a positive impact on their businesses.

How to Write an Effective Social Media Marketing Case Study 

The key to writing an effective social media campaign case study is all in the prep work. The more work you do to prepare, the less back-and-forth you’ll have with your client.

Step 1: Consolidate Your Questions

Depending on how you plan to present your case study, or how familiar you are with the particular client, it’s a good idea to send some preliminary questions before you conduct your interview. This is a great time to not only get permission to use their company logo, quotes, and graphs, but also to make sure they understand they’ll be going into a public case study.

These early questions should cover the business’s background, as well as ask about the campaigns they are interested in covering. Identify which of your products, services, and/or tools they utilized.

Once you’ve got your answers, it’s time to prepare your actual interview questions. This is where you will learn more in-depth information about how your products or services aided in the campaign’s success.

Step 2: Conduct Your Interview

No matter how you conduct your interview, make sure to record it. This ensures that all your quotes are accurate, and you can always play it back if you’ve missed something.

The best way to prompt great quotes from your client is to ask open-ended questions and have follow-up questions prepared. Here are a few examples:

• Explain how you use (your product or service) for this advertising campaign. Please name specific features you utilized.
• Which features helped your campaign reach its goals?
• What did you learn from this social media campaign?

And since you’re specifically creating a social media marketing campaign case study, feel free to dive more deeply into their social media strategies too:

• How has your approach to social media advertising changed over time, if at all? What are you hoping to achieve?
• Are there specific social media platforms you prioritize? Why?
• How do you measure the ROI of social media?

As the conversation flows, you may want to ask more leading questions to get quotes that tie strategic insights back to the product or service your company delivered to help the client reach their goals:

• Are there any specific features that stick out to you as especially beneficial?
• How are you using (product or service) to support your social strategy and marketing efforts?

Step 3: Acquire Assets Like Graphs and Logos

One of the final steps in preparing to write your case study is making sure you get everything you need with a single request. This avoids irritating “back-and-forths” that waste both you and your client’s time.

Be clear on what you need:

• Company logo, usually in .png format.
• Logo guidelines so you use them correctly and accurately.
• Links to social media posts from the campaign.
• Photos of those interviewed.
• Social media analytics reports.

Step 4: Write your Social Media Case Study!

Now that you’ve diligently gathered all the essential information, it’s time to embark on the creative journey of crafting your Social Media Case Study. This phase involves breaking down the intricate details and reassembling them into a compelling narrative that resonates with your target audience.

Deconstructing and Rebuilding

Imagine this phase as assembling the pieces of a puzzle. Each piece of information you’ve collected represents a crucial part of the story, and your task is to arrange them in a coherent and engaging manner. Start by organizing the information chronologically or thematically, ensuring a smooth flow that captures the reader’s attention from beginning to end.

Speaking to Your Audience

Remember, your case study is not just a recounting of facts; it’s a persuasive tool tailored to attract specific readers. Consider your target audience—those potential customers who are most likely to benefit from your products or services. Align your language, tone, and content with their needs and preferences.

In the context of a social media marketing case study, you want to address potential clients who share similarities with the highlighted success story. This ensures that your case study resonates deeply with your intended audience, making them more likely to relate and engage with the content.

Balancing Format for Variety

Variety is key to retaining reader interest. By incorporating a mix of traditional narrative sentences and concise bullet points, you strike a balance that caters to different reading preferences. The narrative sentences provide the depth and context necessary to understand the story, while bullet points offer quick takeaways and emphasize key points, making the content easily digestible.

Uplifting and Positive Tone

The tone of your case study should exude positivity and enthusiasm. After all, you’re showcasing a success story—a triumph over challenges and the achievement of significant results. Keep the language upbeat and optimistic throughout. This optimistic tone creates a sense of excitement, reinforcing the notion that your solutions are game-changers.

Crafting an Adventure Story

Imagine your case study as an adventure story with a clear beginning, middle, and triumphant end. Introduce your “characters”—your client and their business—and set the stage for the challenges they faced. The “conflict” arises when obstacles or issues emerge, and this is where your products or services come into play as the ultimate solution. You’re the hero in this narrative, guiding your client towards victory.

Engage your readers by presenting the journey as a compelling narrative. As the story unfolds, the tension rises, and your solutions become the turning point that leads to the resolution. The final act showcases the remarkable results achieved—the successful resolution of challenges, the attainment of goals, and the transformation of your client’s business landscape.

How to Deliver Your Social Media Marketing Case Study

Now that you’ve crafted your compelling social media marketing case study, it’s time to unveil it to the world and showcase the potential of your offerings. Your case study serves as a powerful tool to demonstrate how you can assist numerous customers in achieving their goals.

Showcase Your Success

Your case study serves as a window into the tangible results and accomplishments you’ve achieved for your clients. It’s more than just a story; it’s a testament to your expertise and the effectiveness of your products or services. Make sure to leverage this opportunity to highlight the capabilities of your offerings and demonstrate how they can make a transformative impact.

Spread the Word

Distributing your case study strategically is crucial to reaching your target audience. Consider the following methods to ensure your case study receives the attention it deserves:

• Website : Feature your case study prominently on your website. Create a dedicated section where visitors can explore your success stories and see how your solutions have made a difference.
• Social Media : Share snippets and highlights from your case study across your social media platforms. Craft engaging posts that entice your audience to read the full story on your website.
• Email Campaigns : Incorporate your case study into your email marketing strategy. Send out teasers to your subscriber list, linking to the complete case study on your website.
• Presentations : If you attend industry events or conferences, integrate your case study into your presentations. This adds credibility and demonstrates your real-world impact.
• Collaborations : Partner with industry influencers or relevant blogs to feature your case study as guest content. This expands your reach and exposes your success story to new audiences.

Bottom Line

Case studies are a valuable marketing and sales tool for any business that offers a variety of products or services. They help potential customers see how you can help them achieve success too. Just like a testimonial, the interviews and data from a case study carry more weight than sales pitches ever can!

Looking for someone to offer a helping hand with your next case study? Book a call with Asset Digital Communications today.

Suggested Reads For You

• Lessons to Learn on Social Media Marketing for Oil and Gas
• Digital Marketing and Social Media in the Pharmaceutical Industry
• Top B2B Social Media Marketing Best Practices
• 25 Undeniable Benefits of Social Media for Business

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How To Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy (+ Template)

Social media can increase sales and boost brand awareness—if you do it right. Learn how to create a social media marketing strategy that gets results.

Social media platforms are the perfect place to connect with your audience, boost brand awareness, and drive shoppers to your website. But, without a plan, it can feel like you’re throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. This is why it’s important to have a social media strategy. 

Even a simple strategy can help you define your target audience , decide what content to develop and share with them, and establish the content types best aligned with your business goals .

Here’s how to create a social media marketing strategy to boost your brand awareness and there’s even a template you can download to get you started.

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing is the use of social media channels to promote and sell products or services. Any kind of marketing activity that takes place on social media and can be tied to an objective is considered social media marketing. 

Platforms like Instagram , TikTok , YouTube , and Facebook offer a direct way to reach out and connect with your customers on a personal level. More importantly, you can reach them where they’re already hanging out. 

What is a social media marketing strategy?

A social media marketing strategy brings together your business’ social media marketing goals and plan of action. It can help you uncover what to post on different channels and what tactics you can use to achieve your business objectives. 

Whether it’s TikTok ads or influencer marketing , social media lets brands access cost-effective marketing. Like a Swiss Army knife, a social media marketing plan can serve various marketing functions, including:

• Driving traffic and sales
• Tapping into influencer networks
• Building brand awareness
• Amassing an engaged audience
• Connecting with customers and prospects
• Providing customer support

Types of social media strategies

The variety and versatility of social media platforms in 2024 means there are numerous strategies you can try. 

• Viral strategies. Jump on trends to explode your reach and increase brand awareness. 
• Nurturing strategies. Build deeper connections with customers by sharing behind-the-scenes content and engaging with your community. 
• Trust-building strategies. Cement your expertise and credibility with reviews and user-generated content.
• Influencer marketing strategies. Partner with relevant accounts in your industry to spread the word about your brand and products.
• Launch campaigns. Promote your latest product line and create a buzz around your brand.

Related article

Top 10 social selling platforms and tools (2024).

Interacting with customers on social media is a great way to boost sales and build your brand. Here are 10 popular social selling platforms on the Shopify App Store.

The importance of creating a social media strategy

If you regularly find yourself thinking “What shall we post today?” you need a social media strategy. Having a plan in place will help you come up with ideas and share content that complements your business goals. 

A thought-out social media strategy can help your business: 

• Boost website traffic by driving visitors to your online store 
• Increase brand awareness by exposing your brand and products to new audiences
• Engage with your customers to learn more about their wants and needs 
• Establish authority and credibility by showing up regularly 
• Nurture customer loyalty by regularly communicating with existing buyers 
• Reduce marketing costs by growing organically 
• Tell your brand story to differentiate yourself from your competitors 
• Increase revenue by promoting your products to a warm audience 

How to create a social media strategy 

• Define your goals
• Know your target audience
• Conduct a competitive analysis
• Content a social media audit
• Choose the right social media platforms
• Develop a content strategy
• Create a content calendar
• Use the right social media tools
• Engage with your audience
• Make a plan for customer service
• Leverage influencer marketing
• Explore social media advertising
• Incorporate ecommerce into your social strategy/a>
• Monitor and analyze performance
• Iterate and refine

1. Define your goals

Identify and define what you want to achieve with your social media strategy plan. This will depend on your business, your audience, and your wider marketing strategy.

Examples of social media marketing goals include:

• Increase brand awareness
• Drive website traffic
• Generate leads
• Grow your audience
• Increase engagement

Your goals will guide your strategy and serve as the benchmark for tracking your performance. Avoid generic goals and instead focus on objectives, such as percentage increases or revenue boosts. For example, rather than having a goal of driving more website traffic, you should aim to increase website traffic by 5% every month, or reach 10,000 website visits a month by December. 

Create SMART goals

It helps to create SMART goals: 

Using the SMART framework means you can track your goals, ensure they aren’t out of the realms of possibility, and make sure they’re relevant to your overall business objectives. Most importantly, they are bound by a time limit. This will increase the likelihood of you achieving your goals.

“I like to start by putting together a list of goals for each platform,” says Mac Steer, owner and director at Simify . “What do I want my audience to walk away from this post thinking? Do I need them to take action? How can I make that happen? Then, once I’ve got some ideas in mind and know what my goal is for each platform, I’ll figure out how best to execute those goals on each platform.”

Choose the most relevant metrics

Measure your progress against your SMART goals by mapping them to metrics.

Your social media strategy should always be data-driven. Aligning your goals to the most relevant metrics will help you track the performance of your strategy and ensure you’re meeting your targets. 

Here’s a quick overview of the metrics you might choose: 

• Reach. The number of users who see your post. 
• Clicks. The number of clicks through to your website. 
• Engagement. The number or rate of users who like, comment, or share your posts.
• Sentiment. How users react to your brand. 
• Video views. The number of times a video is watched.
• Follower count. The number of followers you gain from your campaign. 
• Impressions. The number of times your content is shown to users. 
• Brand mentions. The number of times users mention your brand. 
• Conversion rate. The percentage rate of users who take a desired action, like making a purchase or signing up to your email list. 

2. Know your target audience

An effective social media strategy starts with understanding your customer. Building context on your target audience takes time, but there are steps you can take that will provide lasting value. 

Research your customers

Narrow in on your target audience by looking for demographic and psychographic data or observable patterns that help you form an image of who is likely to buy from you. This exercise won’t only inform your initial strategy but also help you develop a voice and tone for your brand that resonates.

Here are some methods to get to know your target audience: 

• Run a survey. Collect quantitative data about your audience, such as their age, location, job role, and core interests. 
• Conduct interviews. Ask to speak to a handful of your customers to get qualitative data, such as their values, challenges, goals, and pain points. 
• Research the competition. See who’s following your biggest competitors. Identify what characteristics they share, what other content they follow and engage with, and any other information you can glean from their social media profiles. 
• Check support tickets. Your customer service team has a wealth of information about your customers via support tickets. You can often find pain points and challenges here. 
• Dig into your analytics. Most social media platforms have in-built insights that show you information like the age and location of your followers. 

Create customer personas 

Once you’ve carried out this research, you can create customer personas that match each audience segment. This should include demographic information, like age and location, as well as psychographic data, like interests, buying concerns, and motivation to buy. 

You can use this information to build up a picture of your audience and tailor your content so that it resonates with them.

Here’s an example of some of the demographic and psychographic information you can use to get to know your audience. 

• Location. Where do your ideal customers typically live? Even knowing just the countries can help, but if you’re a local business or focus on one region, then it should be the cities you can realistically cater to.
• Age. What is the age range of your customers?
• Gender. What gender do they identify as? This might not be as important depending on your brand.
• Interests. What are their interests, hobbies, or passions? These make for effective targeting options.
• Career/industry. What industry do they work in and what job titles have they held? This may not be relevant, depending on your brand.
• Income level. What is the income range of this buyer persona? Are they price-sensitive or are they willing to spend more money for premium products?
• Relationship status. Are they single, actively dating, or married? This may be relevant if you’re in the wedding industry, for example.
• Favorite websites. What type of websites do they keep bookmarked? Do they browse Instagram or TikTok daily?
• Motivation to buy. What reasons would they have for buying your product? Do they want to sport a status symbol or make time to work out despite a busy schedule?
• Buying concerns. Why might they choose not to buy your product? Are they worried about the quality?
• Other info. Anything else that isn’t covered above but would be worth mentioning, such as education, stage in life (parents with newborn kids), or events they attend.

3. Conduct competitive analysis

A competitive analysis will show you what your competitors are doing well on social media and give you an idea of where your brand sits in the market. It can also inspire—but remember to put your own spin on your content. 

How to conduct a competitor analysis 

• Identify your top five competitors (these can be brands with the same products as you, the same audience, or who share a similar space in the market).
• Research which social media platforms they’re using and how they’re using them (for example, do they predominantly share Stories on Instagram?).
• Explore their top posts and make a note of what those posts include (this can inspire your own content).
• Use social media listening to keep an eye on what your competitors are up to on social media.
• Make competitor research a quarterly task to stay on top of industry trends and to inform your own social media strategy.

4. Conduct a social media audit

Running an audit on your existing social media content activity will help you see what works and what doesn’t. It will give you a better understanding of what content formats and messaging styles your audience prefers, but it will also provide insight into when your audience is online and the best time to post. 

How to run a social media audit

• Analyze engagement. Check your insights on each social media channel you use to identify your top-performing posts based on the number of likes, comments, and shares. 
• Identify patterns. See if any patterns show up in your insights. For example, you might find that people prefer to engage with videos on your Instagram account or that your followers are most active on the weekend. 
• Run audits on each channel. Every social media platform is different—what works on Facebook might not work on Instagram and vice versa, so run an audit on each channel you use. 

When you’ve run your audit, assess the effectiveness of each top-performing piece of content in reaching your goals. For example, if followers are engaging wildly with meme-style videos that have nothing to do with your product, you might not hit the product sales targets you were hoping for.

5. Choose the right social media platforms

The social media content audit will shed some light on your best-performing platforms based on your goals, which will help you decide where to focus your efforts. It can be tempting to spread yourself thin across every new channel that pops up, but it’s better to excel on two or three than be inconsistent on six different channels. 

When choosing the best social media platforms for your brand, consider: 

• Where your target audience is most active
• Your business goals and objectives
• Which platforms are easiest to promote your products on 
• Where your content performs best 

Which social media platforms should you choose?

Different social media platforms serve different purposes—not least because they each promote different types of content. The platforms you choose will depend on your audience, your products, and what’s most popular in your industry. 

Here’s a breakdown of the top social media platforms and what they’re best for. 

• TikTok. A short-form video app with a hyper-personalized algorithm that helps brands nurture deeper customer connections through raw, unedited videos and behind-the-scenes snapshots.
• X (formerly known as Twitter). A short-form text-based platform great for asking questions, responding to customer inquiries, and spotting upcoming trends. 
• Facebook . A community-based platform with a ton of features for brick-and-mortar stores, including check-ins and reviews.
• Instagram. A visual platform with a suite of social commerce features perfect for brands that want to connect with customers and drive sales. 
• Threads. Meta’s new channel helps brands connect on a deeper, text-based level with their customers. 
• LinkedIn. A network-focused platform best for connecting with social media influencers and industry professionals and sharing your company wins. 
• Pinterest. A visual pinning platform that promotes social selling. Great for beautiful brands with photogenic products. 
• YouTube. A video platform perfect for growing a community, sharing long-form content, and driving traffic to your website. 

Drinks brand Aura Bora regularly shares unedited Q&A videos from its social media manager. 

Set up your social media profiles

Once you’ve decided which platforms to use, take some time to set up your profiles. You ideally want to create a cohesive look across platforms while making sure you provide all the information you need to include. 

Here are some tips: 

• Fill out all profile fields in as much detail as the character limits allow
• Incorporate relevant keywords so users can find you 
• Use high-quality profile pictures and branding
• Include a call-to-action to guide users to your website or email list 

Choose the purpose of each platform

Create a strategy for each platform that keeps your big-picture objectives in mind. Different platforms have different uses. For example, consumers use Pinterest to find products, but they use Facebook to connect with friends and family. Your social media strategy for each platform should consider these use cases to give your accounts the best chance of success.

Alex McIntosh, CEO and co-founder of Thrive Natural Care , finds choosing channels easy, as the company is focused on an omnichannel experience.

“We want to be present where our customers are, so we publish content on Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, Reddit, and YouTube,” Alex says. “We know that our customers and audience are using different platforms at different times, so however they prefer to consume content, we want ours to add value to their day.”

6. Develop a content strategy

Design a plan for the type of content you’ll create and share on each of your chosen social media channels. The content may vary depending on the platform and the audience you’re trying to reach, so it’s important to create a strategy that encompasses all of your customer personas and all of your social media channels. 

Find content inspiration 

One of the hardest and most time-consuming parts of creating a social media strategy is coming up with content ideas. But ideas are all around—you just have to know where to look. 

Here are some ways to come up with content ideas:

• Answer customer questions or spotlight previous comments.
• Check customer support tickets to find objections and hesitations. 
• Jump on a trending topic and add your own spin. 
• Browse relevant hashtags to see what content is getting the most love.
• Share reviews and customer testimonials. 
• Create mini-guides for your products.

Define your content mix

Defining your content mix—recurring formats and post types—makes it easier to produce social content while adding a rhythm to your posting schedule. This offers your audience both variety and consistency at the same time.

Within your content mix, you want to have ideas you can plan for in advance, reproduce, and schedule to go out regularly. For example, you might feature a customer testimonial every Tuesday and share a quote graphic every Wednesday and Friday.

Pieces that are easy to create can keep your social media calendar full while you build out more elaborate assets, such as a promotional video or a blog post .

“For a content plan, we try to focus on both timeliness and value for our customers and followers,” says Alex. “One core value of our business is “Leave it better,” and this is a guiding principle for our team. This means we want our social content to be something people feel good about. Whether it is a post about our regenerative farming efforts in Costa Rica or we are showcasing a new skin care product, we want our social media content to be valuable for anyone who sees it.”

Choose your content archetypes 

Content archetypes are different content formats or topics included in your strategy. They should relate to your business objectives and resonate with your audience. For example, a lifestyle brand might have “inspirational quotes” as a content archetype. 

Here are some archetypes to consider:

• News. Information about what’s happening in your industry or posts based on what’s trending at the moment.
• Inspiration. Motivation to use your products or pursue a certain lifestyle, such as quote graphics or photos from around the world.
• Education. Share fun stats and facts or how-to posts from your blog or YouTube channel.
• Product/promotional posts. High-quality product shots of your products being used, demo videos, testimonials, or feature explanations can help you achieve your ultimate goal of getting sales. You can often run these as ads after you create them.
• Contests and giveaways. A contest or free download in exchange for an email is a great way to promote something of value to both you and your audience other than your products.
• Customer/influencer features. Shots or videos featuring your customers or the people they follow.
• Community events. Share meetups, fundraisers, or learning opportunities, especially if you’re a local business.
• Q&A. Ask your audience a question or make a request to elicit responses, such as, “Tag a friend who’s always late.” Answer a common question that you get from customers.
• Tips and tricks. Share useful information and tutorials about your products.
• Behind the scenes. Share how your product is made or what you’re doing to grow your business to offer some transparency that your audience can relate to. Giving your audience a look into the humans behind your business can go a long way in creating trust or building your personal brand as a founder.
• Repurposed blog posts. Leverage your existing content on your Shopify blog and repurpose it into engaging social media content , such as snippets, images, or teasers. 

Aim for five to seven content archetypes to start. Balance your content mix with post formats you can create quickly and those more labor intensive, as well as posts that aim for sales and posts that just seek to delight and grow your audience.

Snack brand Oh Snap! Pickling Co. finds the right mix of engaging content by publishing a mix of product shots, trending Reels, engagement posts, and even a tarot card series on its Instagram to keep customers entertained and engaged.

Developing a mix of different content types will ensure you have a social media lead generation strategy that provides customers with the information they need at every stage of the purchasing funnel. 

7. Create a content calendar

Establish a schedule for when and how often you’ll post on each social media platform. This will help you maintain consistency and ensure a steady flow of content.

Start slow and then ramp up to a higher frequency as you develop your routine and figure out what works.

Set your posting schedule

Decide how much time you can dedicate to social media, even if you can only post once every few days in the beginning. You can build up to one post a day and then test to see if a higher frequency nets you better results on specific platforms.

The amount you post will vary on the platforms you’re using. For example, it’s more acceptable to post multiple times a day on X or Threads than it is to post to your Instagram feed. 

Hootsuite experts recommend using these posting guidelines: 

• Instagram feed: 3–5 times per week
• Instagram Stories: 2 times per day
• Facebook: 1–2 times per day
• X: 2–3 times per day
• LinkedIn: 1–2 times per day
• TikTok: 3–5 times per week 
• Threads: 2–3 times per day 
• YouTube: 1–2 times per week 

Identify your best posting times

You need to focus your attention where it will have the most impact and when your audience is scrolling through their feeds. 

Each platform has a different ideal posting time depending on when their followers are most engaged. You’ll find the best time to post on TikTok will be different from the best time to post on Instagram . If you aren’t sure where to start, think about when people check their feeds: in the morning, at lunch, during their commute, or before bed.

You’ll discover the best posting times for your particular audience through trial and error. Popular posting times will also vary depending on seasons and other variables.

What’s more important is that you schedule your posts in batches, at least a week in advance. Do it in one sitting, dedicating a few hours at a time so you can focus on other things while your social media publishing runs in the background. You can use an automated scheduling tool to load up your social media posts for the week. 

8. Use the right social media tools

Juggling content for multiple social media channels at once is hard work, especially if you’re creating different types of content for each account. 

This is where social media apps and tools can be a huge help. Tools that let you schedule content in advance, create beautiful graphics, and monitor comments and engagement can take a load off your plate and remove much of the manual work of social media posting. 

Here are some social media tools you might consider using.

Scheduling tools

Use an app that lets you schedule your content calendar in advance so you don’t have to remember to post: 

• Buffer . Distribute your content to multiple channels at once. The app also tells you when the best time to post is based on your audience metrics. 
• Hootsuite . Design, schedule, and publish content across multiple networks from one central dashboard. See all your replies in one place, too. 
• Later . Bulk schedule your content across your social platforms and use the tool’s analytics to decide the best time to post. 

Content creation tools

Use a tool to create on-brand graphics and videos to keep your feeds looking fresh and memorable: 

• Canva . Browse a library of hundreds of design templates you can drag and drop your fonts, logo, and graphics onto. 
• Unsplash . Access thousands of royalty-free images you can edit or use in your social content. 
• Venngage . Make beautiful infographics using hundreds of pre-made templates. 

Content ideation tools

Use a tool to come up with fresh content ideas that are relevant to your business and audience:

• BuzzSumo . Discover what other brands are talking about and jump on trending discussions while they’re hot. 
• Google Trends . Track what people are interested in and use it to create content that’s timely and relevant.
• AnswerThePublic . See what questions people are searching for about certain topics or products. 

9. Engage with your audience

Develop strategies to actively engage with your audience, respond to comments and messages, and foster a sense of community. No one wants to feel like they’re shouting into the void, so make an effort to start discussions and encourage interactions around your content. Alex from Thrive Natural Care says the brand has put added importance on engaging with its audience.

“It is one thing to put out great content, but audiences want to feel like they are a part of something, and by engaging with our customers, we help them join us on our journey,” he says.

How to engage with your audience

• Reshare content. Post customer photos and reviews to your own feeds (remember to credit the original creator). 
• Ask questions. Invite discussion by asking a question. 
• Run a poll. Instagram, X, and Facebook all have a poll feature you can use to encourage engagement and learn more about your customers at the same time. 
• Jump on trends. Join in with the latest TikTok trends or trending hashtags on other channels—just make sure it’s relevant to your brand and audience. 
• Respond to comments. Engage your audience by replying to the comments they leave on your content. 

Bubble Skincare does an excellent job of engaging with its followers. It consistently replies to fans and shows its appreciation for purchases and comments.

10. Make a plan for customer service

Customers use social media to engage with brands—and a lot of the time, that involves asking questions and seeking out customer support. It has made social media the go-to place for customer service requests. 

Channels like Facebook and X are ideal for tackling customer questions. Your social media customer service plan might include an automated chatbot that answers FAQs on autopilot—Facebook has a built-in app you can use—setting aside a dedicated time each week to go through customer questions, or directing users from social media to the community help pages on your website. 

11. Leverage influencer marketing

Consider collaborating with influencers relevant to your industry or niche. They can help amplify your reach, increase brand awareness, and drive engagement. 

How to get started with influencer marketing

• Find relevant influencers. Use apps like Shopify Collabs to find influencers that have an audience in your niche. Consider the platform they’re popular on and how that’s likely to impact your brand. 
• Brainstorm content. Work together to come up with content ideas that will resonate with their audience. Make sure it’s relevant to your brand and products, too. 
• Track and tweak. Measure what works and what doesn’t to see what content you can collaborate on in the future.

You don’t need to hire influencers with millions of followers to expand your brand reach. Skin care brand Plenaire works with niche and micro-influencers to reach highly engaged audiences. Not only does this help you grow your audience, it builds trust in your brand and encourages sales, for a relatively low cost.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Plenaire (@plenaire_official)

You can work with influencers on a short-term, one-off basis or as an ongoing ambassadorship. Both have their pros and cons, but it will ultimately depend on your goal and your budget. 

“We include influencers in our strategy as well, notifying them about monthly sales and products to advertise on their blogging channels,” says Nicky Miller, social media manager at Lion Brand Yarn . 

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jewell Washington (@northknits)

“An example of a successful campaign was our 145th anniversary. We encouraged influencers to share videos about our brand’s history and products. The results were a success, we saw nice growth on Instagram, and were featured in several publications covering our brand.”

12. Explore social media advertising

It’s hard to get traction when you’re just getting started on social media and it can feel like an endless uphill battle to get even a few likes on your post. You can give your accounts a boost by investing in social media advertising . Most advertising features have laser-focused targeting capabilities, which means you can choose exactly who you want to reach: Working moms aged 25 to 40? Yoga lovers who live in New York? 

Choose your advertising methods

• Instagram Stories. Show up organically as users click through their friend's and family’s Stories. 
• Instagram feed ads. Direct users to your website or offer an incentive when they click through. 
• YouTube in-stream ads. Promote your brand to rapt video viewers either before, during, or at the end of a YouTube video. 
• TikTok ads. Connect with users by showing up organically as they scroll through their highly personalized TikTok feed. 

13. Incorporate ecommerce into your social strategy

Most social media platforms have native ecommerce features that either help promote your products or allow users to buy directly through the app. This creates a seamless selling process because customers can discover and purchase your products without ever leaving their feeds. 

Make use of social selling features

Here are some of the social selling features to drive sales: 

• Instagram Shopping. Upload your product catalog and encourage shoppers to buy directly through Instagram by tagging products in your feed posts. 
• TikTok Shop. Create a shop where users can browse product tiles, read reviews, and purchase directly from your TikTok profile. 
• Facebook Shop. Let visitors browse your products and purchase through Facebook. Manage your inventory and sales with the Commerce Manager tool. 
• YouTube Shopping. Connect your online store to your YouTube account and tag products in your videos that users can buy directly through your profile. 

14. Monitor and analyze performance

Use social media analytics tools to track the performance of your content and campaigns.

Top metrics to monitor

• Reach. How many people see your social media posts in their feeds.
• Engagement. How many people like, comment, and share your posts.
• Click-through rate. How many people click through from your social content to your website or product pages.
• Conversions. How many people buy something after seeing a social media post. 

The metrics you track will depend on your goals. For example, if you aim to increase website traffic, you should closely track click-through rates. But if you want to boost sales, then conversions are your go-to metric. 

Monitoring your metrics lets you make small changes to your strategy, rather than huge overhauls. You can be proactive in the short term and use those learnings to inform future campaigns.

15. Iterate and refine

You should evaluate and refine your social media marketing plan based on insights and data. Adapt your approach based on what works best for your audience and aligns with your goals. 

Your aim now is to get a positive return on the time, money, and effort you spend marketing your business on social media. That requires deliberate action.

Your social media strategy is your plan of attack. But in a space like social media that changes by the day—with feed algorithm updates and audiences always ready for something new—you need to remain flexible and keep your finger on its pulse. It’s important to have goals to track and check in regularly to see what’s working. Use those insights to develop content ideas, build out your calendar, and grow your audience. 

Social media strategy template

Social media strategy and planning templates.

Ready to get started with your social media strategy? These free, customizable templates give you tools to plan and execute a strategy that connects you with your target audience while keeping your content calendar organized.

Get a better return on investment with social media

Developing a social media marketing strategy will give you purpose when connecting with your audience on platforms like Instagram, X, Facebook, and TikTok. It will help you determine the kind of content your audience likes to see and what they engage with the most. Ultimately, this will help you grow your audience, sell more products, and increase revenue. 

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Social media marketing strategy FAQ

Which social media platforms should i focus on in my strategy, what type of content should i create for social media, how can i measure the success of my social media marketing strategy, should i use paid advertising on social media, how can i engage with my audience on social media.

• Ask questions.
• Reply to comments and shares.
• Start discussions and join in existing conversations.
• Jump on trends that are relevant to your brand.
• Reshare customer content.

What are the key elements of a successful social media strategy?

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