Your Everything Guide to Social Media Marketing: From Strategy to Growth

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing (SMM) is the use of social media platforms to connect with your audience to build your brand, increase sales, drive website traffic, and more. This involves publishing high-quality content on your social media profiles, listening to and engaging your followers, analyzing your results, and running social media advertisements. There are a host of options when it comes to the best social channels for your social media marketing. There is also a range of social media management tools that will help your business get the most out of its social media presence. We’ll unpack all of these things in this guide.

The evolution of social media marketing and management

In the early days of social media marketing, marketers treated the platforms available like billboards — just another outlet for advertising. Businesses simply broadcast their message to followers, hoping to drive traffic to their websites and, ultimately, sales.

But social media has become increasingly crowded, and simply showing up is no longer enough. Now, standing out means more than just publishing — it requires creating value for and meaningfully engaging with audiences.

Luckily, the evolution of these social platforms has meant there are a host of tools and tactics at your disposal to make this easy — and rewarding, too.

For example, a business concerned about what people say about its brand would monitor social media conversations and respond to relevant mentions (social listening and engagement).

A business that wants to understand how it’s performing on social media would analyze its reach, engagement, and sales on social media with an analytics tool. A business that wants to reach a specific audience at scale would run highly targeted social media ads.

All these areas make up modern social media management

Social media platforms: a quick-start guide to the major networks

Social media marketers are spoilt for choice when it comes to platforms — our guide to the top social media sites contains over 20 platforms to consider.

But, before this leaves you feeling overwhelmed, we recommend you’re selective about which networks you’re active on as part of your content marketing strategy (more on this to come).

According to 2023 data, the most-used platforms for social media marketing globally are (in order) Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, and TikTok.

Consider several things when making this decision, but perhaps the most important is where your audience is. Here’s a high-level explainer, plus a breakdown of the demographics of the most popular social media marketing platforms to guide you:

Facebook

• Monthly active users: 3.03 billion
• Breakdown by gender: 77% women, 61% men
• Dominant age group: 25 - 34 years
• 89% of organizations use it for social media marketing

Facebook is the world’s most widely used social network, boasting over 3 billion monthly active users — more than a third of the world’s global population logging in at least once a month.

Facebook supports all content types, from links and text to photos and videos — though one tends to outperform the others when it comes to engagement. We analyzed over 1 million Facebook posts and found thatvideo (Facebook Reels) is the most engaging content format on Facebook.

Our Buffer data analysis also revealed that the best time to post on Facebook for engagement is generally mid-morning on weekdays.

Friday is the best day of the week to share content on the social media platform.

Interestingly, of all the platforms that allow link-only posts, Facebook’s click-through rate is by far the best.

The Meta-owned platform also boasts powerful tools for social media marketing, with tools like Meta’s Business Suite and Facebook Ads Manager.

🔍 Deep dive: Understanding the Facebook Algorithm

YouTube

• Monthly active users: 2.5 billion
• Breakdown by gender: 46% women, 16% men
• Dominant age group: 25 - 34-year-olds
• 67% of organizations use it for social media marketing

YouTube is the original video-sharing social media platform. For many years, the Google-owned network only supported landscape videos but recently introduced portrait short-form videos up to 60 seconds, called YouTube Shorts.

YouTube offers shopping tools like YouTube Shopping (only for certain users) plus YouTube Ads, allowing you to advertise before and during other YouTube videos.

According to Buffer data, the best time to post on YouTube is on Friday between 3 and 4 p.m. Both videos and YouTube Shorts posted at those times tend to get the highest views.

Friday is also the best day of the week to post on the platform.

🔍 Deep dive: Understanding the YouTube Algorithm

⏫ Level up: How to Get More Subscribers on YouTube

Instagram

• Monthly active users: 2 billion
• Breakdown by gender: 44% women, 36% men
• Dominant age group: 18 - 24 years (closely followed by 25 - 34-year-olds)
• 84% of organizations use it for social media marketing

Instagram is a highly visual platform that supports photos, carousels (multi-photo posts), Stories, Reels, and live videos.

Analyzing millions of Instagram posts sent through Buffer revealed that Reels are the best content to post on the platform for engagement.

We also uncovered that the best time to post on Instagram for engagement is generally weekday mornings between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m.

Weekdays typically see solid post performance, but Mondays and Fridays are the best days to post on Instagram, with slightly more engagement on Instagram than the rest of the week.

Instagram, also owned by Meta, is well-paired with Facebook for cross-posting content and ads. You’ll also be able to access Meta’s Business Suite and Ads Manager with your Instagram account.

🔍 Deep dive: Understanding the Instagram Algorithm

⏫ Level up: How to Get More Followers on Instagram

TikTok

• Monthly active users: 1 billion
• Breakdown by gender: 24% women, 17% men
• Dominant age group: 18 - 24-year-olds
• 30% of organizations use it for social media marketing

A relatively new player in the social media marketing game, TikTok has exploded in popularity in recent years, reaching over a billion monthly active users in record time.

TikTok allows users to create and share videos 15 - 60 seconds or ten minutes long and boasts a staggering number of filters, AI effects, sounds, and music to make content creation fun and exciting. The social media platform also recently introduced Stories and carousel-style photo posts.

Buffer data revealed that the best time to post on TikTok is usually later in the afternoon on weekdays, between 4 and 5 p.m.

Tuesdays as the top-performing day for engagement and are the best days to post on TikTok.

🔍 Deep dive: Understanding the TikTok Algorithm

⏫ Level up: How to Get More Followers on TikTok

X (formerly Twitter)

• Monthly active users: 564 million
• Breakdown by gender: 22% women, 25% men
• Dominant age group: 25 - 34-year-olds
• 66% of organizations use it for social media marketing

Twitter, rebranded as X in 2023, was one of the earliest players in the social media game (and the very first channel Buffer supported!).

However, with changes happening on the platform in recent years, popularity on the social network does seem to be dwindling. Our analysis revealed that the number of users posting to X has declined by around 16 percent, and new users connecting X accounts have fallen by about 27 percent since January 2022.

But that doesn’t mean writing the platform off just yet. While some exciting X (Twitter) alternatives are gaining traction now, including Bluesky, Mastodon, and Instagram’s answer to microblogging, Threads, none come close to X’s current 500 million+ monthly active users.

Like Facebook, X supports links, images, text, and video posts, but according to our analysis of over 1 million posts sent via Buffer in 2023, video is the most engaging content format on X.

The best time to post on X (Twitter) is generally weekdays from 9 a.m. to about 4 p.m., with some high engagement spots late on Sunday nights, throughout Monday, and Fridays at midday and midnight.

The best day of the week to post on X is Monday.

X (Twitter) also offers e-commerce features like Twitter Shops, Shop Spotlight, and Live Shopping on streaming events (though only in the US). X Ads is still a force to be reckoned with and is available globally.

🔍 Deep dive: Understanding the X (Twitter) Algorithm

⏫ Level up: How to Get More Followers on X (Twitter)

LinkedIn

• Monthly active users: 310 million
• Breakdown by gender: 26% women, 31% men
• Dominant age group: 25 - 34-year-olds
• 87% of organizations use it for social media marketing

LinkedIn has evolved from a resume-sharing platform to one of the best networks for thought leadership content and building a personal brand. From a business social media perspective, leveraging the personal brands of employees — or employee advocacy — can be a powerful digital marketing tool.

Analyzing over 1 million LinkedIn personal and page posts sent through Buffer in 2023 revealed that video is the best format to post on LinkedIn for engagement, with photos and LinkedIn carousels (PDFs) just behind.

We also uncovered that working hours (between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.) are the best times to post on LinkedIn.

The best days to post on LinkedIn are Thursday and Friday, though most weekdays see high engagement on the professional platform.

LinkedIn also boasts some great features for brands (like Showcase pages and Product pages), whileLinkedIn Ads will allow you to target specific groups, even if they don’t follow you.

🔍 Deep dive: Understanding the LinkedIn Algorithm

⏫ Level up: How to Get More Followers on LinkedIn

Now that you understand more about the most popular social media marketing platforms, let’s explore the key to social media marketing success: a social media strategy.

Social media marketing strategy

Effective social media marketing — and a solid return on investment — starts with a social media strategy. Before you even start thinking about content creation, it’s wise to take a step back and look at the big picture to devise your social media marketing plan. Remember: random acts of content lead to random results.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating your social media strategy:

1. Set your social media marketing goals
2. Define your target audience
3. Define your content pillars
4. Choose your platforms
5. Create your content calendar
6. Analyze your content performance
7. Evaluate your content strategy

Your social media marketing strategy is not a one-and-done process — it’s a plan that should be regularly tweaked and iterated upon. So, instead of thinking of the above steps as a to-do list to move through, visualize them as a cycle, like the flywheel below.

You should be regularly tweaking and building on your strategy to hit your goals.

1. Set your social media marketing goals

Begin building your social media marketing strategy by looking at your business goals. Now ask yourself, ‘How will growing an engaged social media following help us achieve these goals?’

This is crucial, especially when it comes to buy-in from company leaders — they need to see a return on investment (ROI) for your social media efforts. The more value social delivers for the business, the more resources you’ll have to build your social media audience.

Social media can have a powerful impact and deliver an impressive ROI (with the right social media plan). Some businesses use social media to increase brand awareness, while others use it to drive website traffic and sales. Social media can also help you generate engagement around your brand, create a community, and serve as a customer support channel for your customers.

Build a solid foundation for your social media strategy by making these goals SMART. That means they are Smart, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound.

2. Define your target audience

A clear picture of your ideal customer is crucial when building your social media marketing strategy.

Defining your target audience will help you uncover where they are and how best to talk to them. If you or your company have yet to pinpoint this, we suggest creating your own social media marketing personas.

Answering these questions will help you get a clear picture of your target audience:

• Who are they? (e.g., job title, age, gender, salary, location, etc.)
• What are6 they interested in that you can provide? (e.g., entertainment, educational content, case studies, information on new products, etc.)
• What goals and challenges do they have? (Ideally, this will be one your content or company can help them achieve or solve.)
• Where do they usually spend their time online? (e.g., TikTok, Instagram, etc., or niche platforms)
• When do they look for the type of content you can provide? (e.g., weekends, during their daily commute, etc.)
• Why do they consume the content? (e.g., to get better at their job, become healthy, stay up to date with something, etc.)
• How do they consume the content? (e.g., reading social media, watching videos, etc.)

3. Define your content pillars and formats

What type of social media content will attract your target audience best? Could short-form video content be the best format for capturing their attention? Could partnering with an influencer help you create engaging content that resonates?

Again, your marketing personas will help you answer these questions. A competitive analysis of what other businesses like yours are doing on social media channels can also be beneficial here. What are your competitors doing that works? Have they made mistakes you can learn from?

It’s worth adding that your content pillars and formats don’t have to be fixed forever; you can (and should) change things according to how your social media marketing posts perform. Here’s a comprehensive guide to creating content pillars for social media (with a handy template).

When it comes to content formats, short-form video content has been among the best-performing types of content across platforms in recent years — and the trend is still on the rise.

As you’ll see from our 2023 data analysis above, video is the next frontier in driving social media engagement. However, text-based content, carousels, and photos are still essential in ensuring a good content mix.

Here’s a quick recap:

• On Facebook, video is the most engaging content format.
• On Instagram, carousel albums are the most engaging content format.
• On X (formerly Twitter), video is the most engaging content format (followed closely by text).
• On LinkedIn, video is the most engaging content format (closely followed by images).

4. Choose your platforms

Which platforms do you want to focus on? The sheer number you can choose from can be overwhelming. Here are some things to consider when making this choice:

1. It might be better to focus your efforts than spread yourself too thin

When starting out, it’s better to pick a few platforms your target audience is on rather than trying to maintain a social media presence on all the different platforms.

Data from our 2023 analysis of millions of posts sent through Buffer supports this: on average, brands that are only active on one or two platforms have more engagement per update than those that share updates to three or more platforms.

2. Understanding your target audience is essential

Even basic demographic info about your ideal customer will point you in the right direction. (Check out the stats for each platform above for some guidance.)

For example, pouring your social media marketing efforts into LinkedIn might not be your best course of action if you’re trying to reach teenagers. Similarly, TikTok and Snapchat are unnecessary if your target market is retirees.

3. Certain platforms have shopping tools baked in

Many social networking sites, like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, have robust e-commerce tools that may increase sales if that is your social media goal.

It makes sense to reduce friction when it comes to sales by letting your customers shop right on their favorite platforms. If it works for your particular business, the availability of these tools is also an essential factor in your choice.

4. Consider the newer or alternative platforms

While they may be the most popular, the social media networks listed above aren’t the be-all and end-all. If you’re serving a particularly niche market segment, it’s worth exploring the alternative platforms gaining traction — don’t write Mastodon or Bluesky off simply because their active monthly users don’t number in the billions (yet!).

Less popular (but still powerful) social media marketing platforms like Pinterest may also prove valuable. For example, Pinterest Ads reportedly offer a return twice as high as other platforms.

5. Create your content calendar

You’ve outlined the big picture; it’s time to get into the details — and implementation. Social media marketing usually starts with having a consistent social media presence — i.e., regularly sharing content on your chosen platforms.

It’s best to plan your content calendar ahead of time instead of creating and publishing content spontaneously. Luckily, you’ve already done so much of the hard work required. Armed with your content pillars and formats and the platforms you’ve decided on, you can begin to map out the content itself on your social media content calendar.

We have a comprehensive guide to creating your social media calendar (and template) that will walk you through it step-by-step, but here’s a high-level overview:

Step 1. Choose your social media content calendar tool

This could be as simple as a spreadsheet, but social media scheduling tools like Buffer will help you plan, schedule, and analyze your content in a single platform.

Step 2. Brain dump your content ideas

Defining your content pillars likely sparked plenty of exciting content ideas — get them down before you lose them.

A tool like Buffer’s Create Space can be super helpful here. It’s a versatile system that will allow you to save text, images, and videos for your social media posts (and organize them with color-coded tags) to keep track of all your lightbulb moments.

Even if all you have is a link to another social post that has inspired you, a half-baked idea, or a reminder about an important product launch, save it. You can refine it later before you schedule it.

With the Buffer app (available on both iOS and Android), you can save those ideas while you’re on the go, too.

Step 3. Decide on a content cadence for each platform

When it comes to building an engaged social media audience on any platform, consistency is key. It makes sense — the platforms want you to use their sites and apps, so they reward that behavior.

Every platform is different when it comes to the best days and times to post on social media for optimal engagement. While you’re revving up your social media content engine, it can be helpful to know the best times to post on each network to maximize your chances of likes, comments, shares, and views.

Here’s a recap of the best time slots for each platform:

• Best time to post on Facebook: 9 a.m. – 10 a.m. on weekdays
• Best time to post on Instagram: 7 a.m. – 8 a.m. on weekdays
• Best time to post on LinkedIn: 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. on weekdays.
• Best time to post on TikTok: 2 p.m. on Mondays, 4 p.m. on Wednesdays, 8 a.m. on Sundays.
• Best time to post on YouTube: 3 p.m. – 4 p.m. on Fridays.
• Best time to post on X (Twitter): 11 a.m. on Monday and Friday.

While these best-time-to-post guides can be helpful, they’re no substitute for knowing your best time to post. Every audience is different, and yours may be more likely to engage with your content at different times.

After some time posting to your chosen platforms with Buffer, Buffer’s analytics will recommend your unique best time to post for each platform to maximize your chances of high reach and engagement.

Step 4. Map out important launches, events, and other key dates

Plan out posts for all your product launches, company news, and events. You can use placeholders if you don’t have all the details or social media marketing assets you need just yet.

Why map them out first? Those posts should be your priority on those days, and you may want to hold off on sharing other content that detracts from these on key dates. It will also help you gather all the copy, images, and other assets with enough time to plan and schedule these posts.

Step 5. Content batch

Consistently creating content for multiple channels is no walk in the park. But content batching — sitting down to create content in bulk, enough to last several days, weeks, or even months — can help you be more efficient.

Here are some examples of social media manager content batching:

• Using the same Instagram template for several carousel posts spread out over a few weeks. All you need to do is change the text.
• Similarly, using the same template for LinkedIn carousel posts, and changing the content to create several carousels in one sitting.
• Planning a warehouse or factory visit to film several videos of how your product is made for future TikToks, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts.
• Having a shooting day with several colleagues to take advantage of trending TikTok sounds or trending Instagram audio.

Step 6. Schedule your content

With all that content batched and ready to go, it’s time to start scheduling. Scheduling your social media marketing posts in advance is essential. There are so many benefits to scheduling your content in advance — especially for the social media managers themselves.

Having your posts scheduled in a social media management tool like Buffer means:

• You don’t have to be online at all hours to post.
• You can take time off and rest, knowing that your audience is still engaged and growing
• You can post your content at the best time to post on each platform.
• You can free up time for last-minute changes.

6. Analyze your content performance

A hugely important — yet often missed — step in the roll-out of your social media marketing plan is understanding how your content is performing or social media analytics. Are you reaching more people on social media than last month? How many positive mentions do you get a month? How many people used your brand’s hashtag in their posts? Are you successfully able to drive traffic to key pages?

The social media networks provide a basic set of metrics to help you analyze your content performance — some of them, like YouTube Studio, will help you see data in real-time.

You’ll need to turn to a social media analytics tool to get more in-depth social media analytics or to compare across platforms easily. We’re biased, of course, but Buffer’s analytics are tough to beat.

Rather than just showing you the numbers, Buffer uses your reach and engagement data to recommend the best time to post, posting frequency, and content format to help you level up your channel growth.

7. Evaluate your content strategy

It’s time to zoom out again and look at the big picture. Ask yourself the critical question: “Is our social media marketing strategy working?”

To answer this question, you’ll need your social media analytics reports handy — but instead of taking a deep dive into the performance of every post, take a step back and consider whether your social media efforts are helping you reach your business goals.

This is an important distinction. For example, you may be achieving objective success on social media — gaining followers, getting engagement, maybe even going viral with a post or two — but all this work is not increasing sign-ups or sales in a meaningful way.

If this is the case, and your social media marketing strategy is not delivering the results you hoped for, you’ll need to go back to the drawing board on one of the earlier steps and make some changes.

But don’t see this as a failure — social media platforms constantly evolve and change, and it’s up to social media marketers to adapt to those changes. It’s all part of the challenge!

Social media listening and engagement

As your business and social media following grow, conversations about your brand will also increase. People will comment on your posts, tag you in their own posts, or message you directly.

Responding to as many of these interactions as possible is essential, but it can be tricky when you’re managing a sea of notifications. That’s where Buffer’s Engage tool is really handy — it will help you stay on top of all your comments and messages, nudging you when you haven’t replied.

Of course, social media users might even talk about your brand without tagging you. These are conversations worth staying on top of (and where social listening is most important). If it’s a positive comment, you get a chance to surprise and delight them. Otherwise, you can offer support and correct a situation before it gets worse.

Manually searching for mentions of your brand can be tedious and time-consuming, especially as you grow. Instead, use a social media listening tool to help you find all the social conversations you need to participate in.

📚 Recommended reading: Social Media Engagement Guide

Social media advertising

If you have the resources to grow your social media marketing, social media ads are worth considering. A well-executed campaign will allow you to reach a wider audience than those following you, helping to expand your reach and grow your following.

Now, social media ads are so powerful that you can pinpoint exactly who to display them to. You can create target audiences based on their demographics, interests, behaviors, and more. Meta has a particularly powerful Ads Manager that will allow you to crosspost your ads on all their platforms, even if you don’t have a profile there.

The average cost-per-click (CPC) on social media platforms is, on average, lower than Google Ads. For example, the average cost per click (CPC) on Facebook ads across all industries is $0.83 (for comparison, the average cost per click in Google Ads of $4.22).

When you are running many campaigns at once, you can consider using a social media ads tool to make bulk changes, automate processes, and optimize your ads.

📚 Recommended reading: Social Media Advertising Guide

9 social media marketing tips from the experts

We asked social media marketers from all over the world, across industries, to share their most important tips for social media marketing beginners. Their top tips have some common threads — like authentically connecting with your audience, choosing your platforms wisely, and partnering with creators, both internally and externally.

1. Know your audience

2. Stick to the platforms that make sense

3. Optimize your profiles

4. Engage with your communities

5. Be authentic and relatable

6. Create value for your audience

7. Get your team involved

8. Partner with creators

9. Be strategic with links

Social media marketing resources

As you’ll have gleaned from this article, social media marketing is a deep, nuanced subject, and there’s often plenty to consider before a business kicks off any kind of social media marketing campaign.

In a field so constantly evolving, social media pros know staying on top of trends, platforms, tools, and features is key.

To help you get going (or level up), here are some high-level resources to bookmark and add to your social media marketing toolkit (along with the deep dives and zoom-outs we’ve linked above):

✍️ Social Media Marketing Blog

On our resources blog, you’ll find the latest social media news and trends, social media success stories, guides to new platform features, and more.

📖 Buffer Library

Algorithm explainers, ‘Best Time To Post’ guides, step-by-step help for getting started on each platform, and more — the Buffer Library is home to hundreds of resources to help you level up your social media marketing skills and build your brand online.

💌 Social Media Newsletter

Get the latest social media news and Buffer content sent straight to your inbox every week so you always know when new features launch and how to make the most of them.

🧠 Social Media Terms Glossary

Like most industries, social media is full of jargon, which can be confusing if you’re just starting out. Bookmark our social media glossary to help you get to grips with any new words or phrases as you build out your social media marketing strategy.

🚀 The Buffer Community

A space for social media managers, small business owners, and creators to connect, share, and learn from each other.

Got questions? We’d love to help. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, YouTube, and TikTok.