How to Create a Successful Social Media Concept

1. What is a social media concept and why is it important?
2. What is part of a social media concept?
3. How is a social media concept created? Instructions in 6 steps
4. Helpful tools for creating a social media concept
5. Who needs a social media concept?
6. How much does a social media concept cost?
7. Templates and Best Practices for a Social Media Concept
8. Conclusion about the social media concept
9. FAQs about the social media concept

The fact that social media content often seems playful and serves the entertainment of its target audience does not mean that it has been hastily knocked together - even if it sometimes looks that way. In fact, a sophisticated strategy underlies it, involving precise conceptualization and in-depth analysis of target groups and portals . We explain what this looks like and how you can create an optimal social media concept using the right steps.

Table of contents

1. What is a social media concept and why is it important?

2. What is part of a social media concept?

3. How is a social media concept created? Instructions in 6 steps

4. Helpful tools for creating a social media concept

5. Who needs a social media concept?

6. How much does a social media concept cost?

7. Templates and best practices for a social media concept

8. Conclusion on the social media concept

9. FAQs on social media concept

What is a social media concept and why is it important?

Through a social media concept, a brand learns to know itself better and finds strategies to achieve all goals, that it has set. A concept includes, among other things, the following questions:

• Where am I and where is the competition?
• Which goals are important and how can I achieve them?
• Who is my target group?
• What social networks make sense for the brand?
• What content will interest the target audience?
• How do I measure success?

With these guiding questions, you can create a social media plan that consists of several sub-areas. We will present these in the following.

What is part of a social media concept?

A concept is usually structured from several areas - and this also applies for social media concepts. If you want to create a really detailed and complete concept, then consider the following aspects:

Analysis and brand strategy

What does a strategist or planner do in the social marketing area? The most popular metaphor is: building a springboard! This is quite accurate, because you really need a launch pad at the beginning to facilitate the leap into creative design. This is how it works:

As a strategist, you immerse yourself deeply in the world of your target groups and adopt their perspective. Through research, observation, experiments and interactions, you then develop a Consumer Insight that includes the lifestyle, communication and purchasing behavior, advertising behavior etc. of the target group.

This can be done, for example, via:

• Interviews
• Primary and secondary market research such as surveys, studies or internal/external sources.
• Detailed research
• Observation of competitors
• Market and target group analyses
• Numerous tools with which important social media KPIs and target groups are analyzed

With the collected data, you as a planner create detailed strategies on how to communicate correctly with the target group and summarize these in creative briefings. These briefings provide the springboard for creative design: You can immediately start working on developing creative content in a targeted manner. It is important to continue to accompany the design and optimize the campaigns and further brand strategies.

Creative design

Now it's time for the next round. Based on the collected information that you have compiled in briefings, you develop the guiding idea in the creative design. Ask yourself, among other things, also for the social media marketing essential questions:

• How does your company present itself?
• What are the most attractive USPs of your company?
• What could a suitable and unique image look like?
• What are your most important target group-specific KPIs - and for which portal?
• How can you design content that is best adapted to the conditions of the portals?
• What should the campaign achieve: e.g. Image polishing, customer satisfaction, more reach or sales?
• Which call-to-actions lead to the goal?

Piece by piece, the concept to be implemented is defined using the right questions. But also consider external factors. This includes competition or the distribution in the market.

Once all questions have been answered, you can become more concrete: Align all important factors with the image of the company and start creating original visuals and sound. Be sure to focus on captivating and fascinating storytelling, which bewitches users and starts a dialogue with them.

Tip: Take your time and tackle one thing after the other. Trying to have everything at once quickly creates chaos.

Native design

When creating content for campaigns, one thing is particularly important: Native thinking. In plain terms, this means not only knowing the users or the target group inside and out, but also conceptualizing content from the start for the social media area . Because in the end it is less a question of how you position yourself, but how interactively and how adapted this takes place: Your brand must communicate appropriately and target group-oriented.

In reality, it does not work to simply cut the TV commercial down to a few seconds and then let the users of TikTok or Instagram take over - this would quickly have negative consequences with the demanding target group (especially with the GenZ).

So if you don't want to be penalized with disinterest or, in the worst case, even face a shitstorm, you should make it clear right from the start, which topics and formats are dictating the tone on which portal.

What is important here is to know that nowadays hardly anyone turns their smartphone anymore: Vertical formats take precedence.

So decide whether you want ...

• 16:9 (YouTube, Vimeo, TV)
  
• 1:1 (Facebook timeline, Twitter timeline, Instagram feed)
  
• or 9:16 (Instagram Story, Facebook Story, WhatsApp Status)
  

... to use for your channel-specific content and be aware that 9:16 is generally the winner as extremely many portals are designed for the vertical format.

Also consider how many seconds your videos should run or whether they need subtitles. Which topics are common on which portal and do they primarily serve entertainment or business networking? Is a factual-competent tone of voice or a casual approach appropriate?

If you ask questions like these at the very beginning, the social media concept for your social media campaign - and thus the end result - will go down super with users.

Tip: The story arc works differently on social media than anywhere else. Here, the most exciting content must be packed in immediately and then transition to the product, otherwise you will be swiped away in a matter of seconds. A classic slow start is therefore not very efficient.

Social Media Framework

The social media framework is what is actually understood as a Social Media Strategy. The Social Media Strategy is only a part of the entire Social Media Concept, which consists of analysis and planning, creative design and Social Media Strategy.

How exactly a social media concept is created and how this can be realized through the social media strategy at the end, you will learn in the next chapter.

How is a social media concept created? Instructions in 6 steps

What exactly does a complete social media concept for enterprises look like? The partial aspects of analysis, native creative design, and social media framework are now fused into an overall concept, which represents the social media concept. The individual steps are now much easier for you based on the conceptual preparatory work and look as follows:

1. Determining the initial situation

In a first step, you determine how your company is positioned - also with regard to the competition: How do you present yourself and how do the competitors present themselves? How do users react to certain strategies? And what is your USP (Unique Selling Proposition), which sets you apart from others? If you don't have a USP yet, it could be, for example, that you provide exceptionally good customer service.

If you already have social media accounts, it makes sense to do an audit. Here you go deeper into the self-analysis:

• Are all accounts active or does one of them lie forgotten somewhere?
• Are all the accounts named after the company really yours or is there a disturbing imitator somewhere?
• Is the branding (tone, address, and self-presentation) coherent on all channels?
• On which channels does your brand perform best? Focus on what makes sense!
• Is the audience adequately addressed on every channel?

Once all points are in order, you get a consistent image and you have again overview of your entire social media presence. This is incredibly important for the success of the further social media strategy. If you want to know which tools will help you with this, scroll down to the chapter “Helpful Tools”.

2. Set goals

Now you know where you stand and how you position yourself among all the competitors. But it is equally important to know: Where do you want to go? What should your concept achieve for the social media campaign? Objectives can, for example, be:

• Qualitative objectives or perception objectives (external representation of the brand's philosophy, building trust with customers, etc.)
• Quantitative objectives or economic objectives (increase in turnover and sales, increase in market share, acquisition of new customers, etc.)

Important: Always pay attention to the SMART rule! Your goals must be:

• Specific (formulate your brand targets precisely and without beating around the bush)
• Measurable (make your targets visible using metrics or KPIs)
• Accepted (does everyone in their company support the targets?)
• Realistic (stick to achievable targets, based on previous successes)
• Terminated (determine a time when you want to see your targets achieved).

3. Identify, get to know and address target group

Especially at the beginning, it is incredibly important to get to know your audiences well. Ideally, you have a planner (or you are yourself) who conducts interviews, proceeds experimentally, conducts market research, and makes use of all internal and external sources until a precise buyer persona (or several) can be determined.

You can then further explore these with tools that are sometimes also provided by the platforms themselves.

4. Determine the right social media channel

Determine on which channels your target group is located. If you want to create a social media concept for Instagram, then you should make sure that you meet the interests of the audience there with your brand and marketing strategy.

Since there are so many social media portals, it is sometimes not easy to decide. But also focus on few channels at the beginning in order to keep an overview - because even with a plan, this can become quite challenging without prior experience. Tip: You currently have good chances with almost every brand on TikTok.

5. Content for the social media concept

Now it's time for the heart of the matter: the social media content. Without content, nothing works on social media channels, everyone knows that. But what is the right content? Based on the preliminary work, you now know already:

• What you want to achieve
• Who you want to address
• What communicates best
• Where this is most likely to bear fruit.

Topics

Based on the target group analysis, you know which topics and formats attract and inspire your target group. You can use this for your storytelling and tailor gripping content to your audience.

Formats

Depending on the portal, you have several formats available. Use the full range that makes sense, i.e. is desired on the portal. A well-placed link with a call-to-action above a story, for example, can work wonders. Make sure to vary and don't always post in the same format.

And as always very important: Design your content with native design and keep in mind that most portals are designed for use in a vertical format.

Address and tone of voice

The tone can also determine whether your target audience takes you seriously or not. Once you have found the right tone or wording, stick to it consistently in order to present your brand as unique and consistent. Users must be able to rely on the stability of your brand, otherwise they will bounce. Because you probably wouldn't enjoy it either if the corporate philosophy of your favorite shop were to change all the time, would you?

Editorial Plan

You definitely need a social media editorial plan for your content. Define who posts what when. This is important because otherwise you can quickly get confused. Or do you still know whether your colleague posted a certain content maybe three weeks ago? An editorial plan helps to proceed in a completely structured way and also enables division of work without chaos.

6. Review results and adjust strategy

Even if the work is crowned with success and the figures are developing in the right direction: Don't rest on your laurels. Social media portals are incredibly dynamic, adaptable, and moody, if you will. Therefore, you should consistently review the developments of your brand as well as those of the competitors and adjust your strategy accordingly.

This is best done with social analytics and tracking tools, which will be introduced in the next chapter.

Helpful tools for creating a social media concept

There are many tools: comprehensive and tailored to the “basic needs,” expensive and cheap, simply structured and complicated ones. To lighten the jungle of social media software, we have created a list of all areas for which there are useful social media tools:

Monitoring and Listening

Social listening and social monitoring are incredibly important if you want to know the attitudes of users towards your brand. Tools help you to register mentions of your brand in real time - not just to perfect the customer experience, but also to maintain your image and position yourself as the best brand.

Analytics

You are probably wondering now which social media KPIs are important now? Social analytics (such as Fanpage Karma) help you to find out in no time at all and with just a few clicks what is worth doing and what not. They show you, for example, the success of your last campaign or how much and how often your last Instagram post was interacted with.

Attention, now a differentiation follows: There are also social media analyses, but these are not the same as analytics. They are less specifically tailored to your brand, but rather support you in researching the situation on the market and general trends. They are therefore no less useful, and here too the use of a tool makes sense.

Example of a social media analysis

Customer Experience Management

CXM tools greatly simplify interaction with customers. Imagine being able to plan your posts, directly respond to comments via the tool and thus optimally design the customer life cycle. Through social listening tools you can find out the needs and concerns of users and thanks to tools for customer experience management (CXM) all your measures can be communicated.

Example of a tool for customer experience management (CXM)

Content Creation and Ad Manager

Because content can be designed in a variety of ways, there are also plenty of tools for:

• Research and planning (e.g. Hootsuite, Later, Facebook Creator Studio, Notion)
• Textual content
• Visual content (e.g. Canva Pro)
• and many more.

Example of content planning for social media

The tools not only help to design and format the content, but also often offer a lot of inspiration for days when the ideas are less bubbling. They also often offer a dashboard for planning.

Whatever tools you need, take a good look at them, try out the trial versions and find the mix of tools that supports you perfectly. If you are interested in what other companies and users say about certain tools, then reviews are the right place for you.

Who needs a social media concept?

This question is easy to answer: a social media concept is needed by everyone who works with social media. And everyone who has once gained insight into the advertising potential of social media channels does.

A decent concept with a thought-out strategy structures the social media presence of your brand and helps to achieve company goals faster. With the help of the concept, trial and error is reduced to the necessary, thus avoiding scatter losses.

How much does a social media concept cost?

The costs of a social media concept depend on various factors and cannot be mentioned in general. For example, if you want to be looked after by an agency, this costs a different sum than familiarizing yourself with tools and investing your own time (which is also worth a lot!).

In addition:

• How often should what kind of content be posted on how many channels?
• How many tools should help with analysis, planning and design?
• How many people are responsible for the content?
• How elaborate are idea finding, conceptual design and design of content?
• etc.

Overview of an offer range for a social media concept

You see, here every company has different needs and so the answers to the above questions vary greatly. Accordingly, the prices also vary.

But there are free tools and trial offers for beginners, which enable the creation of a social media concept. Certain ads can also be placed quite cheaply on some portals. Therefore, as always: Where there is a will, there is always a way - and through trial & error it is best to find it.

Templates and Best Practices for a Social Media Concept

If you are looking for a template for a finished concept or for a social media editorial plan, you will definitely find it. However, the optimal template that is perfectly tailored to your brand will rarely exist.

What they can deliver, however, is inspiration for everything else that might be important. They also give a first idea of ​​how the structure could be clearly structured. This saves you a lot of time that you would otherwise spend tinkering.

A plan for a social media strategy could look like this, for example:

Example of a social media strategy planning

If you want your social media strategy planning to be a little more playful, such a format might give you a better overview:

Sample planning for a social media strategy

What is important is that the plan meets your needs and leaves room for your ideas.

Conclusion about the social media concept

Whatever you do, don't do it without a plan. What may seem simple at first, without structure quickly leads to chaos, thus leading to loss of trust or interest from users. So definitely take the time to create a sophisticated social media concept. The time invested is worth it in any case and whoever doesn't believe it yet can remind themselves of an old guiding principle: Good things take time.

FAQs about the social media concept

Are there social media concept templates?

There are templates for content editorial plans, social media strategies and complete social media concepts. This allows you to plan your own strategies easier and track developments. They also facilitate the presentation of brand strategies and concepts for colleagues and customers.

Why is a social media concept important for businesses?

Concepts are so important because they structure the very extensive field of social media appearances and you can focus all goals. Instead of quickly losing track, thanks to the concept you stay on the ball and know exactly where you stand at all times.

How do I write a social media concept?

A social media concept includes the following steps:

1. Determine position of brand and competition
2. Formulate goals
3. Determine target group and determine portals
4. Plan and create content
5. Keep an eye on results and adjust strategies if necessary

What kind of tools are important for creating a social media concept?

There are tools for all areas in social media. However, the following tools should not be missing in any concept, as they support fundamental measures:

• Social Media Monitoring and Social Media Listening
• Customer Experience Management
• Content Creation
• Social Media Analytics