Ask five people what a social media strategy is and you will get five answers: a content calendar, a list of hashtags, a competitor analysis, a tone-of-voice document, a spreadsheet of post ideas. All of these can be part of the work. None of them is the strategy on its own.
A strategy is a set of choices that makes the daily decisions easier. If it does not help someone decide what to post on a Tuesday, it is probably a presentation.
1. The job of each channel
“We need to be on Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube” is a distribution list, not a plan. Each platform should have a defined role:
- Discovery: reaching people who do not know the brand yet.
- Consideration: helping people who are interested decide.
- Credibility: giving existing customers and partners a reason to trust the business.
- Community: keeping a relationship with people who already care.
- Conversion: moving a warm audience to a specific action.
A channel can do more than one, but not all of them well. Deciding the primary role prevents the feed from becoming a mix of unrelated experiments.
2. A specific audience
“Everyone aged 18–45” is not an audience; it is a census. A useful audience description includes the situation the person is in, the question they are asking and the alternative they are considering.
For a café, “people who work nearby and want a place to meet that is not another chain” is more actionable than “food lovers”. For a wellness practice, “people who have tried general advice and want a specialist explanation” is more useful than “health-conscious adults”.
3. A point of view
The brand needs something to say beyond the product. That might be a belief about how the category works, a standard it holds, a way of doing things that is different, or a useful body of knowledge.
A point of view is not a slogan. It is the argument that makes the content recognisable even when the topic changes.
4. Content pillars with a job
Pillars are often listed as themes: food, people, behind the scenes, offers. That is a filing system, not a plan. Each pillar should have a purpose and a format:
- Explain — answer a real customer question.
- Demonstrate — show the product, place or process in use.
- Convince — provide proof, comparison or a customer story.
- Invite — make a clear, low-friction next step.
- Relate — show the people and values behind the business.
If a pillar cannot be described in one of those terms, it may not need to exist.
5. Formats and cadence that the team can sustain
A strategy that assumes daily Reels, weekly carousels and a monthly film requires a production capacity that most businesses do not have. The result is a strong first month and a quiet second one.
We prefer to define a cadence the team can maintain on a bad week, then add opportunistic content when capacity allows. Consistency compounds; sporadic excellence does not.
6. A production and approval system
The strategy should say how content gets made and approved:
- Who writes, designs, shoots and edits.
- How far ahead content is planned.
- Who approves and how long they have.
- Where the calendar lives and who updates it.
- What happens when something urgent or reactive comes up.
Without this, the strategy depends on individual memory.
A content calendar tells you what is publishing. A strategy tells you why, for whom, in what voice, and what you will stop doing.
7. Measurement with a decision attached
Reporting should not be a list of every metric the platform offers. Each measure should answer a question:
- Are we reaching the right people? → audience quality and geography.
- Is the content worth saving or sharing? → saves, shares, comments.
- Are people taking the next step? → link clicks, profile actions, enquiries.
- Is the brand becoming more recognisable? → consistency, direct search, branded mentions (harder to attribute, but worth tracking).
If a metric does not change a decision, it does not need to be in the monthly report.
What can be left out
- A competitor post count. Knowing a competitor posts 30 times a month is not a strategy.
- A long list of hashtags. Useful in execution, not a strategic pillar.
- Generic tone words. “Premium, approachable, bold” means nothing without examples of what those words look like in a caption.
- A promise of virality. Not a plan; a hope.
- Every platform. Being absent from a channel is often better than being inconsistent on it.
The one-page test
Can you fit the following on one page: the role of each channel, the audience, the point of view, the pillars, the cadence, the approval owner and the measures? If yes, the team can use it. If it needs forty slides, it will be admired once and forgotten.
The best social strategy is not the most comprehensive. It is the one that survives contact with a busy month.