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Guide To A Viral Social Media Marketing Strategy In 2025
Table of Contents
Don’t just post, strategise!
Do you ever feel you are posting on social media for no particular reason? Maybe you are following what’s the latest trend; #ThrowbackThursday or #MondayMotivation. Maybe you rarely post at all because you’re swamped by other business responsibilities. You’re not alone, trust us on this. Research has shown that 58% of B2C companies have a content marketing strategy that’s essentially non-existent. If your social media marketing isn’t hitting that mark, then maybe that justifies one of the few reasons you may not yet have: a well-written, well-documented social media marketing strategy. Social media account in itself is wonderful, and therefore, you need to find effective use of these accounts. That’s viral marketing. A social media marketing strategy is the planning, creation, and execution of content on your chosen platforms. This blog will take you through creating a viral social media marketing strategy in 9 easy steps.
Social media marketing strategy
A social media content strategy is basically a game plan for how you’re going to use content to boost your brand and hit your goals on social media. It’s best to write down this strategy so you can always refer to it while creating posts, sharing them, and keeping track of their performance. If you’re with a team, having such a marketing strategy will also help keep everyone on the same page. Remember: when you approach social media content marketing by having a solid plan, your brand will surely grow. Otherwise, but if you throw up absolutely random posts without any purposes clearly formed with exact keys in measuring success, you have quite an insignificant outcome.
Brands that are doing wonders on social media
1. Nike
With a massive number of followers across all social media platforms, Nike is one of the leading brands online. It does not just push products on Instagram but instead pushes the athletes who use their products. This unique approach has attracted a dedicated fan base and sports enthusiasts to their social media pages.
2. Netflix
Netflix really stands out on social media as they know how to connect with their audience and create a community vibe. This is achieved through behind-the-scenes content, interactive stuff, and active engagement with fans. This has enabled them to garner millions of followers on different social media platforms.
3. Starbucks
For quite a while now, Instagram has been the go-to social media, and Starbucks really invested marketing energy into making their presence shine there, aiming for that perfect feed. Honestly, they have totally nailed it. Starbucks has an aesthetic that is very difficult to beat, and this is why so many social media users are drawn to their Instagram. They are also creating colour-themed content that will change with the seasons. This is how they synchronize their online vibe with their sales strategy. And lastly, in terms of their content strategy, Starbucks mixes single images with reels. This is a smart move because it lets them display their flashy visuals while also riding the video wave and being good citizens with the algorithm.
4. GoPro
One of the best strategies is using user-generated content, and GoPro is definitely a standout brand in this area. Their main focus is on high-quality videos and user-generated content that highlights their products. The ton of advantages user-generated content comes with. It’s free, for starters, and encourages stronger bonds with the audience. Also, it tells your product story in real life and builds trust with your brand. Did you know that 78% of consumers trust product reviews, but only 19% trust social media ads? GoPro knows this well, as can be seen from how they integrate user-generated content into their social media campaigns.
Guide to a viral social media marketing strategy
1. Get to know your audience
This means that the way of determining which posts will respond the best is through knowing your audience. It also leads you in choosing the proper social media to use. Not every business performs well on each platform. For example, B2B companies do best on LinkedIn and Facebook, while e-commerce brands shine on Instagram and TikTok. Here are some crucial things to know about your target audience:
- Age
- Gender
- Education
- Income
- Interests
- Location
Knowing your audience better can help you create buyer personas, which in turn lets you craft a content strategy that boosts engagement.
2. Set SMART goals
Goals do more than just point you in the right direction; they also shape your budget. There are tons of memes out there showing how marketers often struggle to nail down a solid budget for their social media efforts. Just a heads up, relying on viral cat memes to create buzz or make your brand popular isn’t really a solid goal.
So, what do effective goals look like? Here’s a breakdown:
- Boost brand awareness
- Drive traffic to your website
- Engage with customers
- Lead generation
- Customer loyalty and advocacy
- Share educational content
- Promote products or services
- Establish influence and thought leadership
- Expansion of audience demographic
Having clear social media goals must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, referred to as SMART goals. A clear marketing objective allows for easy tailoring of your content on social media to specifically hit those targets.
3. Research about your competitors
To really get a grip on how your social media content strategy is doing, you’ve got to dig deeper than just your own numbers. Checking out what your competitors are up to can give you fresh ideas for your content and help you set better benchmarks and goals.
Look at your competitors’ social profiles and ask yourself these questions:
- How often are they posting on social media?
- Which platforms do they use the most?
- What kind of content are they sharing?
- How would you describe their brand’s vibe on social?
- How do they engage with their audience?
With the hard data, using a solid competitive analysis tool can make it a breeze to pull insights from your competitors like average engagement rates, growth trends, and their top-performing content by automating the data collection. That way, you can set goals and strategies based on real data to improve your content.
4. Audit your current social media
Now that you know your audience and what you want to achieve, it’s time to take a good look at your current social media posts. Doing a social media content audit can give you some great insights for creating a social media strategy that fits your brand perfectly. This step will provide you with data on how your posts are performing, helping you spot what’s working well. Check out the posts that did really well and those that didn’t across all your platforms. Ensure that your audit criteria align with your content goals. For example, if your aim is to boost brand awareness, look at follower counts and impressions on each platform. Identify which posts
5. Choose your target social media platforms
Knowing precisely who your audience is could make it much easier for you to determine what type of social media best suited to your business. To give an example, if the ideal customer is B2B professional, you must know that LinkedIn should top the list because there, the majority of its user group consists of the seniors or decision-makers at decision levels. While when targeting Gen Z, on the other hand, change gears. This young population spends more time in these videos-heavy platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. The takeaway? Unless you have a massive social media team, don’t stretch yourself too thin by trying to be everywhere at once. Stick to two or three platforms where your target audience is most active and really focus on those.
6. Develop a solid content creation plan
You may feel that you do not have enough material to post every day. This is why you should have a good content creation strategy. This way, you can dedicate some quality time to making social media content. Schedule some dedicated time every month to come up with the content you need for that upcoming month; so if all of a sudden your inspiration stops, you can draw upon this stash you had ready ahead of time. Don’t forget about the awesome content your followers and customers can provide. User-generated content is a great way to engage with your audience. You can encourage them to share photos and videos of themselves using your products. While some might do this just for fun, you might want to sweeten the deal for others by offering discounts in exchange for their content.
7. Create a strategic social media calendar
Now that you know what works and have established your top goals, it is time to develop a content calendar for social media. Your content calendar will enable you to step back and look at the larger picture of your content plan. You will be able to see and arrange your ideas; this makes it a whole lot easier to act on your plan. Visualise your content calendar as the center for everything that you post. Do not shy away when planning your content from repurposing and scheduling it across a set of channels to maximise your use of the content. It should also guide your decision for where to post based on previous research on what works well for each channel. A content calendar makes collaborating on social media posts across different individuals in your company much easier and better for a cohesive effort in cross-team collaboration.
8. Promote your content
Your social media strategy is more than what you share on your channels; it includes actively getting content out there to boost visibility for your brand. Distribution planning is important, which can be achieved through planning your posts in advance. If you are posting when your audience is most active, then that is a good chance of connecting with a bigger audience. If you’re just posting content the moment it goes live, then you’re really missing out on a big chance to enhance your reach.
- Encourage others to share your content
When others share your posts, it acts as great social proof. Your social media strategy should involve engaging with those who share your content, whether by responding or reposting. Engage your audience to get interacting by asking questions and asking them to share their thoughts; either on social media, or in blog comments. - Let’s not forget about employees
A strategy with the employees to advocate their products can enhance the coverage of your content significantly. You can consider your employees as brand “influencers.” For example, an employee post on LinkedIn can help drive the amplification of the content coming from the page of the brand. - Use platform-specific features
Each social media platform has special features to help you grow your audience. For instance, on X and Instagram, hashtags are extremely powerful in helping your content be seen by a wider audience. It connects you to people interested in particular trends or topics rather than your followers. For LinkedIn and Facebook, you can also find groups that are relevant to the interest you have in expanding the reach of your visibility.
9. Measure the effectiveness of content
Tracking your performance is important for a strategy that lasts. Do it as a habit to monitor the performance of your content every month. Check how each piece performed and what contributed to its success. Check how well it supported your initial goals. Some key social media metrics to track include:
- Awareness: Views through impressions and reach
- Engagement: Reactions, comments, clicks, and shares
- ROI: Conversions and leads coming from external sources
Just when you feel that your social media is all confused, a little creativity and conviction that funny memes can move mountains with some planning always helps to give birth to such a social media content strategy that can be legendary.
Wrapping up!
Heads up: nothing in this world is final.
Social media is constantly evolving. New platforms come and go. Old favourites watch their audience migrate. Your business will not be immune from change as well. Which means, of course that your social media marketing strategy needs to be well documented and need to check on it fairly regularly for consistency. Overall, refresh your social media strategy, and don’t forget to check out our 5-step video on updating your social media strategy for 2024. Plan your process with the ideas and resources and stay on these strategic steps that will help in developing great content.
