We’re three weeks into 2025 and already the social media landscape is feeling like the wild west. Between the potential TikTok ban, the rollback of community moderation on Meta, and the new vertical feed on Instagram, those who work in marketing are being forced to adapt to multiple updates across key platforms.
Despite the constant changes and updates, social media has become a non-negotiable for marketing teams and staying ahead of the trends is a must to cut through the noise. Emerging technologies are driving personalized experiences, short-form video dominates engagement, and brands are required to continuously develop growth strategies in a time where organic has seemingly stalled.
Platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels are dominating due to audience preference for quick, engaging content. Social commerce continues to grow, integrating shopping seamlessly into platforms. And despite feeling like it plays against these first two shifts, consumers continue to value brands that engage authentically and provide fast, meaningful customer experiences.
As a brand, how can you update your strategy to adapt to changing consumer behavior and trends, while still serving the marketing goals that will show impact on your efforts? Here are practical steps on how to create a social media strategy from our experts:
Before you begin strategy work, all key stakeholders should align on clear objectives for the initiative. Are you building brand awareness? Is this a channel that will focus on increasing conversions? Does it make more sense to focus on fostering a community? For most brands, social is top-of-funnel and a winning social media strategy understands that these platforms are strongest for organic brand discovery. Having realistic discussions on the goals of the platform will help determine which tactics to employ.
Once objectives are clear, you’ll want to utilize benchmarking to map out KPIs and projections. Generally, audience growth, unique video viewers, and engagements lead dashboards but you’ll also want to consider website traffic, shares, and engagement rate.
At Spark, we like to begin every new client social media strategy by conducting a competitor audit. Choosing 4-6 competitors, take a look at each brand across all platforms and ask yourself the following questions:
Understanding what competitors are doing well, and also what they’re not doing, can help identify opportunities for your own organization.
Next, utilizing existing marketing personas, you’ll create social media audience personas. These will likely be closely aligned with your broader brand personas, but will include more social media-specific details, such as which platforms they’re most active on, the brands they follow on social media, what trends they’re following, which “side of TIkTok” they’re on. You can leverage tools like Meta Audience Insights or TikTok Analytics for behavior trends as a starting place.
Once you have your key social media personas mapped out, you’ll be able to determine the best platforms to reach them on. Rather than spreading your resources across every single channel or simply crossposting, choose a couple of key platforms that will be most effective in reaching your audiences based on userbase.
After identifying which platforms you’ll be focused on, you can develop platform-specific strategies. For example, if your audience is largely Millennials, testing nostalgia-driven content and using Instagram for visual storytelling might be a key tactic.
Before you dive into creating content, you’ll need to build our content pillars. Often, we see brands creating content pillars based on overall brand messaging, without taking into account the objectives of the program or what resonates with each platform.
When our agency works on creating a winning social media strategy for our clients, we map out our content pillars based on where they’ll meet our audience in the funnel and tie that back to our platform objectives. The content that will hit the discover feed and grip a user’s attention enough to make them click through to our profile, is likely very different than the content that will make them want to purchase the product. That purchase-driven content is also different from the type of post that they’ll share with a friend. While all three of these content pieces are different and serve varying objectives, each one has a role to play in a holistic content approach.
For example, if we’re starting out with a new Instagram account, we’re focusing on creating quick, trending content pieces that will reach new users and make them feel compelled to click “follow.”
While we make educated choices when creating a social media strategy, we truly won’t know if it’s effective until it’s employed and we’re measuring results. On at least a monthly basis, track engagements, reach, and conversions and evaluate patterns in both top-performing and lowest-performing content. Regularly audience your performance and adjust strategies accordingly. A/B test creatives, captions, CTAs, and content formats to discover what resonates most with your audience.
For our clients, we provide monthly reports that illustrate all of the above as well as track competitor top posts and their performance compared to ours. We also ensure that we’re identifying what’s working, at least three opportunities and corresponding next steps so that we can continuously update and optimize strategy.
While your brand’s performance will help you determine how to adjust strategy, you’ll also need to keep a close eye on trends and adapt accordingly. Stay informed through industry blogs, events, podcasts, and by following thought-leaders in the industry. Be willing to test new features and trends - like AI-driven chatbots - while considering if and how they meet your goals. It’s important to strike the right balance between trying new tactics and maintaining the consistency your audience expects.
One of the biggest mistakes we see brands making is expecting to see growth through content only – you need to invest in growth strategies.
Employing growth strategies requires a mix of collaboration, community engagement, and a strategic amplification of content. Partnering with creators and influencers is a powerful way to tap into new audiences while building a bank of authentic and relatable content. nBeyond collaborations, community outreach through off-profile engagement–such as commenting on relevant posts, joining trending conversations, or participating in niche groups–helps position your brand as approachable and invested in the community. Boosting high-performing posts that are already converting viewers into followers can be an effective way to amplify their reach, ensuring that your most engaging content is seen by a broader audience.
Together, these strategies create a holistic approach to sustained growth and meaningful audience connections.
To succeed on social media in 2025, brands must focus on understanding audiences, goal alignment, and adaptability. Regular evaluation and a proactive approach to trends will ensure relevance and impact. Follow the roadmap above to understand how to create a social media marketing strategy that connects and converts.
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