When posting content consistently you may notice that sometimes some content does better than others. What does this mean? And what can you do with this information? By analyzing your social media and performing what the industry refers to as a S.W.O.T analysis, you can tell if your marketing is working.
What is S.W.O.T??
The S.W.O.T analysis stands for 4 categories within your social media strategy that you will want to look at in depth, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. In general, the strengths and weaknesses categories focus more on internal issues and things that occur within your own company. The Opportunities and Threats categories, however, focus on the industry as a whole and what your competitors may be doing. Let’s dive more into each category!
Strengths + Weaknesses
Firstly we want to look at our strengths, and what we are doing well. This can be simple wins for the company such as gaining followers or a more complex such as consistent engagement. When looking for what your marketing strategy’s strengths are, keep in mind who your target audience is in order to identify if you are reaching them. Weaknesses, however, will be focused on what your company struggles with. These are usually based on the same analytics as strengths. For example, you could have inconsistent engagement, low reach, or your demographics could be showing that your content is reaching the wrong gender/age/location.
When analyzing strengths and weaknesses utilize Instagram Insights. To know if you are reaching your target audience, look at the calculated demographics under Total Followers. When looking for engagement rates, look at Accounts Engaged or on specific posts.
Opportunities + Threats
Next, look at your competitors’ social media and see what they are doing that you are not. Could you use these ideas and make them your own? If you find that a specific type of content is working well for them, such as reels featuring transitions, try creating that type of content yourself. This is an example of an opportunity. Opportunities can also be found on your own social media by looking at your Top Posts and looking for trends. Trends could be whether or not the pictures showed faces, the type of background in the picture, or the content type itself. Take this into account and try to use these tips to create this type of content again.
While looking at competitors also try looking at what areas of their social media look better than yours. This could be that their links send users to specific pages rather than the welcome page. Take this as something that you are doing that could hurt your marketing effectiveness as you are confusing users. This could be considered an opportunity or a threat.
Next Steps
Once you have gone through this process and have created your own S.W.O.T analysis, take what you have learned and put it into practice! After trying a few changes and letting some time pass, try doing your S.W.O.T analysis again. This is an-going practice as there are always new things to learn and things to improve on! This will continue to tell you if your marketing is working and if any efforts are being wasted.
Want to Learn More??
Check out our other blog posts and follow us on Instagram at @engagedmarketingcompany for more marketing tips for bridal shops and other small businesses!
