Brands need more than a website to reach their audiences these days. While a website is a key part of online presence, 68.7% of the world’s population uses social media as of 2025. As AI engines also shift the landscape of online visibility, social media remains a key pillar for connecting with new consumers.
Forge Apollo is a social media marketing agency based in Philadelphia. In this guide, we’re sharing our tried and true top five values to help you maximize your social media strategy and supercharge your online presence.
1. Research
What kind of content does your target market enjoy, and on what platforms do they seek it out?
Identify Your Audience
The first step in developing a social media strategy is identifying your target audience. You must fully understand the type of people you’re targeting to create valuable materials. Consider information such as:
- Demographics – Age range, gender, location, etc.
- Work Life – Job title, industry, company size, etc.
- Family – Relationship status, kids, siblings, etc.
- Motivations – Pain points, goals, challenges, etc.
- Interests – Hobbies, passions, etc.
Identify Your Goals
A good social media strategy needs solid goals to work towards. Identify your brand’s goals with social media using the SMART goal framework: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely.
When working towards online visibility, goals often focus on metrics such as impressions.
Choose the Right Platform(s)
To create an effective social media strategy, you must first identify which platforms your target audience uses. Consumers use different networks for various reasons, and understanding this reasoning is crucial for selecting the platforms that will benefit your brand.
Follow our guide on choosing the best social media platforms to help narrow down your options.
Hot Tip: Your competition can be your greatest asset. See which platforms your competitors use and what makes their posts effective. How can you translate these findings to your brand?
2. Planning
How can you deliver effective social media content?
Workflow
Part of your social media strategy should include planning out a workflow with your team. Create a process for planning, creating, and posting your content. Some common types of tools to assist with this workflow include:
- Planning – Plan out a calendar in tools like Google Sheets or a project management software
- Production – Create posts using tools like Canva, or CapCut
- Scheduling – Schedule posts to go live with Meta Business suite or tools like Hootsuite or Later
Content Calendar
Another fundamental element of your social media campaign is a detailed calendar. An organized post schedule will help keep posts cohesive and ensure a consistent flow of material.
Fill out your calendar with posts of different formats, and from a series of “content buckets.” Each content “bucket” represents a different topic or type of post, like “behind the scenes” or “educational.”
Hot Tip: Leave some flexibility in your calendar for trendy materials, but don’t rely on it. Viral subjects are hard to track in terms of a success timeline. Instead, regularly assess these trending topics for relevance and importance, and use them to supplement existing content.
3. Optimization
How can you effectively reach your target audience with your content?
Monitor Popular Formats
Popular formats on social media evolve over time, making it essential to monitor them as part of a social media strategy. For example, vertical video formats, such as Reels, Shorts, and Stories, have gained popularity.
Social SEO
Social media platforms are modern search engines, so social SEO should be a part of your strategy. Google now even indexes Instagram posts in its own search engine. Research relevant keywords and incorporate them into your:
- Content
- File Names
- Captions
- Hashtags
Regular Audits
Plan regular audits into your social media strategy to enable you to pivot based on performance. Ask questions like:
- Which posts performed well?
- What content didn’t engage as many users? Why?
- What content outperformed your content, and what was different about it?
For help conducting an audit for your content, use this guide by Hootsuite.
Hot Tip: Track performance metrics over time to see trends and gain performance insights.
4. Relatability
How can you connect with your audience?
Balancing Content Pillars
Be sure to appear human to your followers. Users are less likely to interact with you if you do nothing but advertise, promote, and solicit on your page.
One easy way to appear more authentic on social media is by utilizing features like Stories, Live Video, and Reels to share more spontaneous, natural content that requires little planning or design experience to produce.
Brands should also balance their content pillars during the planning stage, ensuring that no more than 20% of their content is promotional in nature.
Engagement
Invest some time in engaging with your audience as part of your social media strategy. Respond to comments. Answer direct messages (DMs). Get active in community groups.
This shows consumers you’re approachable and accessible. Ideally, you’d have a set amount of time each week to dedicate to engaging.
Hot Tip: Looking for more detailed advice on transparency? Forbes has a great guide for keeping it real online!
5. Partnerships
How can you maximize your social media impact with partnerships?
Influencers
Working with influencers as part of your social media strategy can help you extend your own influence. Influencers can provide many benefits, such as:
- Exposure to new audiences
- Access to specific markets
- Social proof and authority
- Authenticity
- Brand loyalty
- Higher engagement
- Increased sales
- Better SEO
Collab Posts
Collaboration posts (or “collab posts”) are posts that look like they’re posted by multiple accounts together and appear on each account’s profile. Like working with influencers, they’re another road to gaining more exposure and social proof.
Don’t be afraid to reach out to industry leaders to explore collaborations. What big names share expertise relevant to your brand? How can you work with them in the future to establish credibility with their audience?
Agencies
“Partnership” takes on a new meaning in your social media strategy when applied to agencies. Working with a digital marketing agency to audit your performance, develop your strategy, or create your content can bring fresh eyes and wise perspectives to your brand.
Hot Tip: Follow competitors on your personal accounts to see how they appear organically in a follower’s feed. What catches your eye about their posts? What causes users to interact with their content, and how can you apply this to your own campaign?
Still need help with your online presence?
Of course, implementing these techniques will be different for every platform and company. Overall, the most important goal with social media is ensuring your content is consistent, coordinated, and on-brand. With this overriding goal in mind, you can build a powerful online presence, effectively attracting an audience and ultimately building strong brand recognition.
If you’re looking for further insight, reach out to Forge Apollo for a personalized marketing strategy! We’ll guide you through every step of implementing a method to jumpstart your business’s campaign.
