If more people devised solid social media strategies they would definitely have a much more solid internet presence than they may already have. With that in mind, how does one go about designing the ultimate social media strategy?

To determine what is and isn’t working in your social media strategy, go over the analytics for your posts. Review your posts over the last three months, six months or year. See which posts got the most traffic, as well as the most shares and other engagements. Adjust your strategy accordingly.

Use the “Shotgun Approach” for reliable reach. It doesn’t matter how large your following is, your messages can sometimes fall through the cracks. With increasing numbers of brands utilizing social channels you certainly have to find better ways to get your message to stand out from the noise. The gist of it all is this – unless you call, email or otherwise send your content to your audience, you have no idea if it’s going to reach them. Even if you have a huge fan base on your social networks, you never know if your people will see your message.

Analyze Competitors. Perhaps the most important research effort for your social strategy is an analysis of your competition. Discover what works for your competitors and then determine how to use that information to improve your social media strategy. To effectively analyze your competitors you need to look at their keyword prioritization patterns, break down their rankings, and monitor their online visibility, especially on search engines.

Create an Audience Strategy. Produce content with your (whole) audience in mind (who your customers are and what they have in common), and you’re more likely to inspire consistent, share-worthy content. Basically the recommendation is this: create an audience strategy rather than pander around thereby wasting effort, time and money.