Eight ways to build the ultimate social media strategy in 2022

Alisha Marfatia is a social media strategy coach and the host of the Build Your Brand podcast.

The following is an edited extract from a recent podcast episode, where Marfatia runs the audience through the ultimate steps required to build a social media strategy fit for 2022.

The ultimate social media strategy

Stop avoiding video content
Now top of my list is going to be no surprise if you have listened to the podcast before: it is to stop avoiding video content.

If you are not using video content in your strategy, whether it be TikTok, whether it be reels — this is your little nudge, and I’m not going to go further than that. I’m just giving you a sneaky cheeky little nudge. It’s the start of the year [and] it’s time to step outside that comfort zone.
Understand your target audience
Next up is understanding your target audience. I want you to be able to tell me this year: who are you really wanting to be sitting there on the other end of that phone? Who’s sitting there watching you, watching your stories? Watching your posts laughing at a lip sync? What do they look like?

Chances are if you haven’t thought about this too much before, you’re likely to just be posting what you want [and] what you like. That’s not exactly how you’re going to build that community. So start tapping in and understanding what your target audience wants to see and let’s get posting!
Cross-promoting your brand and account
Moving on to cross-promoting your brand and account, I am such a big one for remaining consistent and it can be really hard when you have all these different platforms and spaces that you could be leaving your mark, planting those seeds.

When it comes to saving time and utilising that creative content you’ve already come up with rather than trying to think “What am I going to do for this platform? Or what should I post on this one?”, just use what you’ve already posted! Find a way to repurpose that and share it across the other platforms.
Collaborate
Now cross-promoting is great, but what I’m even more excited for and what I really want you to underline, highlight, make bold is collaborate, collaborate, collaborate, collaborate.

There is no better way in my eyes in 2022 to be known, to be seen and to build your reach, then utilising your connections; utilising others. In the past it might be a little bit intimidating “Where do I start? How do I do it? What’s the right way to go about it?” but the platforms have made it so much easier for you to jump on this.

Coming into 2022 look ahead, look a month ahead, come up with a list of who you could collaborate with, what accounts and brands you could team up with to combine your strengths, to combine your expertise and to really make epic content for one another’s audiences.
Highly shareable content
Creating highly shareable content is something we really saw built towards the end of 2021 and I don’t see it going anywhere — funny videos, memes, using lip synching audios for our videos, it really grew.

If you’re posting content I don’t want just shareable memes and videos to be the only thing you’re sharing because you still need to entertain, you still need to educate, you still need to tell your story and I have seen this become even more powerful. So put that on the list for 2022: highly shareable content.
Making content accessible
Platforms have made it so easy to make our content accessible to everyone so there’s very little excuses now. There is no better time — you keep putting it off, “I’ll do it next time, I’ll start putting captions on my stories another time as it takes too long though, the text options on our images on our character, it just takes a bit too long.”

It’s 2022 so let’s start. Let’s [not] call it a New Year’s resolution, but let’s stick to this: start ensuring that whatever you’re putting out there, you’re not cutting it off to certain audiences, it’s able to be consumed to be loved, and to be shared by everyone.
Social media SEO
If you are not sure what SEO is, it’s search engine optimisation and it really just is something growing on our platforms. In the past, hashtags have been the way to be found, but as our platforms are growing in the way of their intelligence, their algorithms systems, the words you use in your videos, the text you use on your videos, the captions, the keywords in your bio, these are all growing your searchability and allowing you to be found by more people.

I want you to start to consider what are the words that keep appearing for your industry. You can have a bit of a list. Add a little subsection to this ultimate checklist and have your keywords that you want to continue using in your captions in your videos to help you build this awareness, build the search ability for your branch.

For me, it would probably be reels queen, Instagram reels, brand building, etc. These are the hashtags that I used in the past, but now I am finding more ways to continue incorporating these words into my content.
Making an impression
Now, I want to keep this checklist fairly short, so that you can actually make it actionable. So last on the list for 2022 is making an impression. Now I know you’re sitting there thinking I’ve always wanted to make a good impression, this isn’t something new, but right after this episode I want you to get onto your social media platforms and accounts and give your bio, your profile [and] your images a bit of an update.

It’s so easy to just think, “I haven’t updated my website, or I haven’t updated this in so long”. I want you to give it a bit of a fresh start to the year because those first impressions, when you do the work, when your content gets people onto your profile, you want it to pack a punch, you want them to then convert. If it’s a bit airy fairy, like some corporate website that says “Our vision is to do this”. We want your profile to give that appearance, give that impression so that people want to stick around.

It doesn’t have to be long; it just can be short to the point and represent you and your brand.