How to Create a Kickass Social Media Strategy in 2025

Over 60% of the world’s population was on at least one social media channel in 2024. So, whatever your target audience is, there’s a solid chance you’ll find them on socials. Discover how to create a detailed social media strategy to boost your business’ growth.

Before your social media marketing can yield results, you need to know what it is you want to achieve.

In this detailed guide, we’ll discuss what is a social media strategy, why you need it, and how to create one that works for your business.

What is a social media strategy?

 A social media marketing strategy is a comprehensive plan that defines how you use social media to achieve business goals and promote your brand. It also helps to define roles within your marketing team, for a smooth and effective workflow.

If you’ve ever found yourself racing against time to make a last-minute social media post, or completely ran out of ideas on what to post, then you know just how important good planning can be.

Here are some of the main benefits of creating a social media marketing strategy.

1. Increased brand awareness

A well-targeted social media ad campaign can help with conversions. However, if you want to increase your brand awareness, you have to play the long game.

Having a social media strategy will help you shape your brand image, i.e. how people perceive your brand. It’s not just about memorizing your logo or packaging. A consistent social media presence will help potential customers understand your values and the nature of your brand. 

Here’s one of my favorite examples. Dollar Shave Club has one of the most creative social media presences out there. Funny posts like these promote not just their offer, but build a connection with the brand and customers. The people that use their shavers, also follow along for witty posts, and engage with them by leaving comments and tagging their friends.

2. Improved customer engagement

Aside from building a connection to your brand, a social media strategy can also significantly increase engagement. Research into what works and what doesn’t can help you decide what type of content you should share and when.

For example, your audience might prefer memes and jokes on Instagram, but you find that on Facebook they engage most with posts where you share articles and data insights. 

3. Cost-effective advertising

Social media advertising is often more affordable than traditional marketing methods, offering a high return on investment (ROI). This is thanks to precise targeting options, and the ability to tailor your campaigns exactly to your needs - the platform, budget, and different visuals. 

However, when you have a plan and specific goals in mind, you can get even more from your social media campaigns. This is especially true around big advertising dates, such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Mothers/Fathers Day, etc.

With a social media strategy in place, you’ll know where to advertise, to whom, and how to achieve the best possible results.

4. Traffic generation

Social media isn’t just useful for building brand awareness and boosting profit. It can also be a valuable asset in increasing your site’s traffic. 

Whether you’re sharing blog posts across social media, or promoting a new product, the right social media approach will help you increase the number of visits. Of course, this will positively impact your SEO and help your sites rank higher.

For example, Hootsuite has a fantastic marketing blog, with all the latest data, trends, and useful tutorials. Since they put so much effort into creating valuable content, it makes sense to share it on social media.

You can see that they craft excellent Facebook posts that don’t give out too much, but enough to get followers to click. 

Sharing your content on social media doesn’t just help with site traffic. If you’ve created a great lead magnet like this, be sure to disseminate it as widely as you can to improve your lead generation efforts.

5. Customer Insights

Analytics tools on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn provide valuable social media metrics on audience preferences, behaviors, and trends.

Using these insights to create a social strategy will allow you to have a much better grasp on who your audience is and how to approach them best on each platform. 

How to create a social media strategy?

Now that you understand why it pays to establish a social media strategy, it’s time for practicalities. Here’s how to create a social media strategy, step-by-step.

1. Set up goals and establish KPIs

The foundation of any successful social media strategy begins with setting clear, measurable goals. Without a clear destination, it’s impossible to determine the success of your efforts or decide which actions will get you there. Your goals should align with your overall business objectives and follow the SMART framework—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

For instance, instead of a vague goal like "get more followers," a SMART goal might be: 

Increase Instagram followers by 20% (from 5,000 to 6,000) within three months by posting three high-quality reels per week and engaging with audience comments daily. 

This goal is specific (focuses on Instagram growth), measurable (a 20% increase), achievable (based on historical performance), relevant (aligns with the brand’s growth strategy), and time-bound (three months).

Another example is a small e-commerce business aiming to drive traffic to their website. A clear goal could be: 

Generate 1,000 monthly website visits from social media within six months by sharing engaging product posts and offering exclusive discounts to followers.

Setting such goals provides direction and helps you track progress. Bear in mind that you won’t always set up the best goals right away. That’s why you need KPIs to keep you on track, or adjust as needed.

Still, it’s important to understand your goals as they serve as signposts for the direction of your social media strategy. 

2. Define your audience 

Once you’ve set up your business and brand, you’ve probably also defined your buyer personas.

However, while these are often the same as your social media target audience, don’t take previous findings at face value.

Take a deep dive into your social media accounts to understand who follows you where and why. Utilize interactive content formats, such as polls and stories to gather feedback from your followers. 

Don’t forget, different people can follow you on different platforms. For example, lots of brands that sell physical products use their Instagram and Facebook accounts to promote their offer. The content usually includes high-quality visuals and videos showing their product in action.

In contrast, many of these brands also have a TikTok presence. However, the video content here is usually a lot less polished, often humorous, and meant for younger audiences that appreciate genuineness. 

3. Choose your platforms

There are dozens of notable social media platforms, and around several have billions of users in your ranks.

Still, if you’re a small to medium company, the best approach is to choose 2-4 platforms to focus on. Spreading your resources thin by trying to be present on each and every channel will hurt your performance. Instead, focus your efforts on where your audience is, with content that responds to their interests and needs.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the number of social platforms these days, here’s a handy reminder about the most important ones, and what they’re best used for.

For most businesses nowadays, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn are a must - the rest are usually optional. While you can and should occasionally repurpose content between these platforms, remember that each is different and requires an approach tailored to the individual audiences that use them. 

However, if you’re looking to connect with a niche audience, platforms such as Reddit and Twitch can be truly valuable resources.

Although X has seen a massive decrease in activity since Elon Musk acquired it, it would be unfair to say the platform is irrelevant. However, it’s now definitely more appropriate for building a personal brand (perhaps for your CEO), and perhaps sharing humorous, casual, content than serious brand building.

Finally, a few big social media platforms, such as WhatsApp and WeChat, but these are mostly used as customer support channels, rather than traditional social media marketing. 

4. Develop content pillars

Believe it or not, this is possibly the most important and difficult part of creating a content marketing strategy.

Content pillars are the foundation of your social media strategy. These are the core themes or topics your content will revolve around, ensuring consistency and relevance across your posts. They should be related to your value proposition, as well as the real-life needs and problems of your target audience.

Content pillars provide structure and direction, making it easier to generate content ideas. Most successful brands balance multiple pillars to cater to different aspects of their audience’s needs. For example:

• Educational Content: Provides value by teaching something new (how-tos, tips, or industry insights).
• Entertaining Content: Captures attention through humor, storytelling, or behind-the-scenes glimpses.
• Promotional Content: Highlights products, services, or special offers directly tied to sales goals.

Or, you can divide content pillars by different topics you’re going to talk about (that’s what we do at the ManyPixels blog!). For example:

• Marketing
• Software
• Web design and development
• Branding

Lululemon, a global activewear brand, is a great example of this. Their first content pillar is community engagement. This includes sharing user-generated content, challenges and topics that are close to their buyers. 

Their second pillar is all about wellness and mindfulness. This topic is an organic choice for an activewear brand. Still, Lululemon does more than most. They never fail to come up with unique content on World Mental Health Day, and start important conversations about a holistic approach to personal health. 

Finally, as a brand that sells products, their third content pillar is all about product features. Like most brands, you’ll see lots of high-quality product shots, as well as reels and videos showing these in action. 

5. Create a content calendar

Once you know what you’re going to post on your social media, it’s time to create an actionable plan of how you’re going to do it.

There are lots of free content calendar templates available online to get you started. However, don’t forget that you should tailor them according to your needs.

For example, according to Wordstream, the best time to post is between 9AM and 12PM on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The same report also suggests that Saturdays are the days with least engagement.

However, if you run a brunch place or a nightclub, it makes sense to keep your social media especially active on Saturdays. 

Here are some details you may wish to include in your content calendar.

1. Content theme, according to your content pillars.
2. Content type, such as image, video, story, poll, text post, blog, etc.
3. Platform/Channel
4. Audience, such as existing or potential followers, or a specific portion of your audience, e.g. previous buyers.
5. Publish date and time 
6. Purpose and KPIs, such as clicks, reactions or website traffic
7. Content details, such as key messages, CTA, visual assets, or hashtags
8. Content owner, i.e. who is the responsible person(s) for content production, publishing and tracking 
9. Campaign or event context - if applicable, add details about the broader context of a singular post in a marketing campaign.
10. Analytics (post publishing) allows you to keep track of your post’s performance, and helps you store all relevant data in one place, so you can make future adjustments and tweaks more easily.

7. Design reusable assets

Design is one of the most important aspects of social media marketing. It’s well known that posts with images receive almost 40% more engagement.  And there are many visual platforms (Instagram, Pinterest) where you can’t even post without some sort of graphic. 

So, hiring a social media designer is a good idea. However, if you don’t think you have a need to hire someone in-house, it’s advisable to create reusable assets, such as templates.

These usually come as part of a social media design kit, which costs anywhere from $300 to $1500. Of course, don’t expect this will be the only and last social media design you need.

You can always find a skilled freelance designer on a platform like Fiverr or Upwork. However, bear in mind that this is very time consuming and often costly. Social media design usually isn’t expensive. However, costs can pile up fast when you need a lot of projects.

Finding and hiring freelancers is time-consuming and there are no guarantees the right candidate will be available every time you need them.

Of course, you can always hire a digital design agency. However, this will usually set you back thousands of dollars for setting up your social media marketing plan. The monthly retainers also usually cost a couple of thousand dollars.

For a much more cost-effective, high-quality design service, check out on-demand design services. With one flat monthly rate, you get unlimited requests and revisions.

So, whether you need a cool branded Instagram post or repurpose your content for Pinterest, we can help. ManyPixels is a leading unlimited design company that can help you will all your social media design needs. From custom illustration to wow people on Instagram, to simple video edits to make your life easier - we've got you covered!

{{SMD_PORTFOLIO="/dev/components"}}

8. Set up community management workflows

Remember, your social media is a living organism.

So, even with the best social media marketing strategy in place, you need to leave room for development. 

A huge part of this is community management, or interacting with people on socials. To avoid overlooked comments that will frustrate your followers, set up a workflow of how you will manage your social media on a daily basis (e.g. who responds to followers, who posts, when, how, etc.)

Besides timely responses to queries and comments, community management also entails  additional activities that engage your followers, or even pivoting your strategy in the midst of a crisis situation. 

Recently, many brands had to complete overturn their social media strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

One great example came from the Getty Museum which challenged people over X to recreate their favourite artworks with household objects. This creative post garnered a lot of engagement and some hilarious user-generated content.

8. Invest in paid campaigns

Paid advertising is another pillar of a great social media strategy. 

Social media advertising has become an essential tool for businesses looking to expand their reach and drive conversions. In 2024, global spending on social media ads accounted for 33% of all digital advertising, amounting to an impressive $234.13  billion. This figure is expected to grow to $434.87 billion by 2027, underlining the increasing reliance on paid campaigns across platforms​

Why invest in paid social media campaigns?

The main benefit of paid social media is precision targeting. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok offer advanced demographic, behavioral, and interest-based targeting features, ensuring that ads reach the right people. 

For instance, TikTok’s massive user base of over 2 billion expected in 2024 makes it a hotbed for innovative advertising, especially for younger audiences​.

On the other hand, Meta Ads Manager allows you to customize your messaging and content across different platforms (Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp), so that you can appeal to different segments of your target audience. 

While they don’t usually garner as much attention as awareness-raising campaigns, paid ads are the bread and butter of digital marketing nowadays. And there’s certainly more than one way to do it successfully.

Here are just a few key tips for social media paid ads.

Embrace different formats

Long gone are the days when ads were limited to one static image. From short-form videos to interactive stories, make sure you find the format that fits your brand and ad campaign best.

For example, many luxury fashion brands embraced carousels as a great way to showcase their products in different contexts. And of course to prove their aesthetical prowess with eye-catching images, such as the ones below from Fendi. 

Keep messaging clear and simple

Less is always more in paid ad campaigns. People tend to ignore ads most of the time, so you can be certain that heaps of text and unclear value propositions will go right over their heads. 

Here’s a brilliant example from Scissors & Scotch, that uses minimal text and a simple image to send a pretty compelling message. 

A clearly defined goal and CTA

Many social media platforms also allow you to choose a specific goal for your ad campaigns. So, when devising the copy and visuals for your ads, this is also something you should keep in mind.

For example, if you’re starting with a brand awareness campaign, don’t overload your ads with pushy calls-to-action, such as “buy now”. Instead, invite people to visit your homepage or follow your socials to learn more.

On the other hand, if you’re already targeting returning or prospective customers, provide clear and actionable information on how they can purchase (e.g. add links to a product landing page). 

9. Monitor and adjust

Even the best social media marketing plan is always a work in progress. Once you have your content creation up and running, your ad campaigns well defined and targeted, there is still a lot of work to do.

Social media management doesn’t entail simply monitoring that the plan is executed. You need to follow your results in real-time and make adjustments as needed. We’ve already mentioned community management and responding to unforeseen circumstances.

But on a more regular basis, you’ll also need to follow what works and what doesn’t, and scale up or down. Make a note of your social media metrics regularly, and schedule regular reporting/audit sessions that will take these into account.

10. Scale as needed

We’ve mentioned scaling, but this is a tip that requires a bit more elaboration.

Just think about hugely successful brands on social media at a time when a new platform emerges. Why is it that 9 out of 10 times, they would flock to the new channel, even if they already have thousands or millions of followers on multiple platforms?

The reason is simple: social media is ever-evolving. Unlike newspaper articles that sometimes stay relevant for decades, with social media if you don’t update constantly you’ll be left behind.

For example, you might want to focus your efforts on a different channel, in case the one you’ve been using is no longer relevant for your audience. Or you might consider partnering up with an influencer. 

It’s well known that influencers with fewer followers (micro and nano influencers) have much better conversion rates, thanks to a smaller, more loyal audience. So, this type of marketing is definitely no longer out of reach for those with a limited marketing budget.

Final word

We hope this sets you up for success when creating your social media marketing strategy.

As you can see the planning process involves a lot of work, research, and many important steps. Still, if you do the initial work, your social media marketing will be much more successful and easier to manage.

While we can’t help you plan your content, or research what platforms to use, ManyPixels is an ideal social media design partner.  We help hundreds of businesses get their daily graphics in just a few clicks.
The design process is managed through our custom design app, so that you and your marketing team can request graphics and edits on the go. 

Starting at just $549 a month, our design subscription costs much less than working with freelancers, and is a fraction of the prices charged by traditional design agencies.

So what are you waiting for? Get started today, and set your social media up for success with custom-made graphics that suit your business goals.

Have any questions? Feel free to book a free demo and we’ll be happy to answer all your queries.