At the outset of their social media journey, organizations often lack the essentials: a clear strategy, leadership investment, and effective workflows. Social media might not have a dedicated owner, or the owner could be juggling multiple roles and responsibilities.

Typically, organizations at this stage exhibit the following traits:

• Lack of Clear Strategy: Without a clear strategy, these brands face an uncertain future and struggle to create effective content due to the absence of a content development plan.
• Underestimating Social Media’s Value: The importance of social media is often overlooked, leading to its value being neglected within the organization.
• Inadequate Processes and Documentation: The lack of formal processes and documentation hampers efficiency and consistency.

How to level up from beginner

Define Your Goals

For beginner-stage brands, goals may include:

• Increasing brand awareness
• Growing social presence
• Connecting with a specific community
• Creating a central hub for all social media initiatives

Conduct a Social Media Audit

If you already have a social media presence, an audit will provide an overview of existing initiatives and help identify gaps and opportunities for improvement. A social media audit may involve:

• Identifying owned social media channels and their importance to your brand
• Reviewing the frequency of posting
• Assessing types of content shared
• Determining current ownership of social media responsibilities
• Evaluating social media performance across networks

Create a Simple Social Strategy

To move beyond the beginner stage, develop a straightforward social media strategy outlining your goals and a plan to achieve them.

If you’re uncertain about what content to produce, observe what competitors and industry leaders are doing and what works for them.

Pro tip: Niall Grogan, Team Lead, North EMEA Account Management at Brandwatch, suggests creating content pillars or focus areas with specific objectives to inspire content ideas. For example, brand awareness content that emphasizes engagement, or product announcement content aimed at conversions. Finding the right mix for your organization is crucial.

Once you decide on your content, establish a posting structure. This will allow you to test different posting times and optimize your content cadence.

Lay the Foundation for Growth

Consistency and structure help brands focus on key metrics and lay a solid foundation for tracking ROI.

By grouping similar posts, social media managers can analyze their performance against specific objectives. They can also track and report on general growth metrics over time, demonstrating how an early-stage strategy is working and the potential it could achieve with more investment.

Organizational skills are essential for laying a good foundation for growth. Start by defining who has the final sign-off on publishing and creating universal naming conventions for campaigns and other marketing assets.

As organizations become more organized, they might explore additional ways to build brand awareness, such as paid social. Paid social can amplify your social media efforts, drive faster results, and help turn your social team into a revenue-generating entity. To secure that budget, social teams will need to convince leaders of the value, and there are helpful tips ahead on how to have those conversations.

Ready to take your social media strategy to the next level? Continue reading the full guide to discover how to assess your organization’s social media maturity, overcome common challenges, and implement effective strategies to maximize your impact. Unlock the full potential of your social media efforts today!