Creating a Long Term Social Media Growth Strategy in 2025

Published on 17.09.2025 by Chizoba T

Social media has become a key part of marketing today, enabling brands to connect with their audiences directly. People now use social media to communicate with friends, discover products and services, and even buy on social media. However, with so many brands on social media, you need a social strategy to help get in front of the competition.

A social media strategy summarizes what you plan to do to achieve success on social media. It acts as a guide for every action and provides essential insights into whether you are succeeding or not. You want to ensure that your social media plan is specific and concise. Avoid making it so broad and lofty that it becomes impossible and hard to measure. This post will guide you on everything you need to know.

What is a Social Media Growth Strategy?

A social media strategy is a plan that details the steps you need to take to grow your brand on social media, from social media copywriting to hashtag strategies and more. With a well-defined power, you can create an effective social media campaign, grow organically, enhance brand perception, and gain a competitive edge.

A good social media marketing strategy should be two-way traffic. It shouldn't be about talking to your audience but engaging with it. You should outline your goals and add the tactics and partnerships you will use to achieve these goals.

When creating a good social media strategy, you should:

Set some clear goals that are in alignment with your business goals.
Consider the platform and the content that will work best for your social media audience.
Track some key metrics, such as traffic, to determine what is working and what isn't.
Create a workflow for planning, publishing, and reporting your social media activities. This can include scheduling your social media content.

Importance of a Long-Term Social Media Strategy in 2025

With attention falling on social media, many creators and brands focus on creating posts that give them overnight success. You need a long-term social media strategy if you want lasting results. While focusing on going viral can provide your brand with short-term gains, these do not last long or give you a loyal following.

On the other hand, sustainable growth focuses on building relationships with your audience and consistently providing them with value, even as you align with your long-term goals instead of just vanity metrics.

It's also worth noting that social media algorithms change regularly. What worked in the past may not work tomorrow. If you rely on strategies that worked a few years ago, you must realize these will become obsolete. Rather than trying to stay updated with every social media algorithm, you need to focus on what you can control, such as:

Creation of high-quality content that meets your audience’s needs.
Having a consistent branding on social media.

When your social media audience trusts your brand, you will start to see natural growth. Any good social media strategy should prioritize making genuine connections with your audience. Rather than achieving fast growth, you must focus on creating long-term, authentic engagement with your audience.

Understanding the Latest Social Media Growth Trends in 2025

When creating a social media strategy that will work in 2025, you must understand the trends shaping social media marketing and the platforms people use. Here are the key social media marketing trends to watch in 2025:

Use of Artificial Intelligence

One of the elements that has transformed how people do social media marketing is AI. Using an AI tool, brands have been able to automate repetitive tasks and create new and fresh content. For instance, generative AI helps brands create a large volume of content. Additionally, intelligent chatbots can help keep customers engaged 24/7. Brands can also use AI to schedule social media content.

The Rise of Social Commerce

Social media users are no longer just using the platforms to chat but to shop. Top platforms such as Instagram and TikTok now allow users to browse and even buy products directly on the app, ensuring that social media users have a fun and easy buying experience. That also means brands should use social commerce to turn their followers into buyers.

Increased Popularity of Short-Form Content

Short videos are becoming popular on social media platforms such as Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, or TikTok. This can be attributed to the fact that they can easily grab the viewer’s attention and keep them hooked. Therefore, in 2025, any brand wanting to get noticed should focus on creating small, catchy, and bite-sized videos, whether infographics or explainer videos.

Key Components of a Good Social Media Strategy

A good social media strategy should consist of the following elements:

Goals and objectives. You need to begin by defining some clear and measurable goals, aligning with your business objectives, and ensuring that your strategy delivers tangible results.
Content strategy. You need a content plan that will provide value for your audience. Doing that will increase their value and ensure variety and consistency across social media platforms.
Choice of a platform. Ensure that you choose a platform that fits your target audience. Understand the kind of content they are consuming.
Engagement-driving strategies. You need a plan for interacting with your target audience, enhancing conversations, and improving brand loyalty.
Metrics and analytics. You need to have a way of tracking the different KPIs that will measure the performance of your social media campaign. You can then use the collected data to improve your strategy.
Frequency and schedule. Ensure that you have a consistent posting schedule. You also need to determine the best time for posting to maximize your reach and audience engagement.
Budget and resources. You need to have a budget for your paid campaigns and a budget for the human resources required for content creation.

Steps in Creating a Powerful Social Media Strategy

If you want to have a robust social media strategy, follow these steps:

Set Clear Goals and Objectives

Before creating a social media strategy, you must have a clear goal and objectives. The goals will also define other steps and the key performance indicators. You also want to ensure that you set SMART goals, meaning they should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. This could be something such as:

Brand Awareness

Brand awareness aims to make your business, product, or service more recognizable and memorable on social media by having a strong presence. The goal is usually to have a positive perception of your brand through:

Creating valuable content consistently.
Engaging meaningfully with your audience.
Strategic collaborations.
Consistent branding.

There are several tips you can use to improve your brand awareness. These include:

Creating content for the platforms where your audience spends a lot of time.
Focusing your efforts on a few essential platforms rather than having a presence all over.
Using watermarks or logos to associate certain content.
Having a style for your social media that will enable you to remain unique on the crowded platforms and ensure brand recall.
Enhancing your brand message using hashtags, slogans, and taglines.

Lead Generation

Social media leads refer to people who interact with your products or services on social media and indicate their interest. This could be by filling out a contact form or calling back. You can use several strategies for lead generation, such as sharing customer testimonials and reviews, and enticing deals that show the value your brand is offering. According to one study, 91% of the respondents checked at least one review before buying a product.

Community Building

Social media has emerged as a powerful tool for creating online communities through groups, chat rooms, forums, and networking sites. These tools enable users to interact, support, and share information. A thriving social media community can be an excellent tool for driving meaningful connections, ensuring strong brand affinity, and encouraging positive brand mentions.

Understand Your Audience

Another key part of creating a social media strategy is researching your audience demographics to understand their needs, behaviors, demographics, and pain points. You can then use the information to create marketing campaigns relevant to your audience’s needs. According to a McKinsey study, 71% of consumers prefer buying from businesses that offer them personalized experiences. You can use several methods to research your target audience, such as:

Quantitative Research

This research method collects essential data such as statistics, figures, and facts to provide a better overview of your audience. It captures social media demographics like age, location, gender, profession, and interests to get insights into their buying habits and online activities. You can use other tools like Google Analytics and social media analytics to get quantitative data.

Qualitative Research

This non-numeric research method provides audience insights into habits, experiences, and preferences. You can conduct the research through reviews, interviews, feedback, FAQs, surveys, feedback forms, and questionnaires.

Identify Your Target Platforms

As of 2025, there are over 100 major social media platforms. It can get daunting if you are trying to spread your wings on all of them. That's why you must know which social media platforms to focus your efforts on. When you narrow down your options, you can channelize your strategy and reduce redundancy. When choosing the right social media platform, you need to consider different factors such as:

Audience preference. Every platform has its unique purpose and the audience it appeals to. A good idea would be to segment your audience according to their age, interests, and locations, ensuring that your choice of platform caters to different audience segments.
Synergy between platforms. You must focus on platforms that complement one another for a more effective social media strategy. For instance, you can use WhatsApp to convert your Facebook ads. You can also cross-share TikTok videos as an Instagram reel.
Platform algorithms and features. Consider the business features, targeting options, and advertising options to determine if they suit your brands well.
Competitor analysis. You can check the kind of content your competitors create to get inspiration from them. Pay special attention to their posting frequency, mix of platforms, and engagement methods. Consider if there are gaps you can exploit and lessons to learn from them.

Choose a Brand Persona and Voice

The brand voice reflects the brand’s core missions and values, which can be shown through consistent language, tone, and style. On the other hand, social media personas ensure that your brand voice meets the expectations of your audience and the dynamic of each platform. While the brand voice is usually static, the persona is generally dynamic. For whichever person you choose, ensure consistency to build credibility and trust.

When building the brand voice and persona, consider these elements:

Your core values. For instance, if you are a beauty brand, you can have specific core values such as confidence, diversity, and empowerment.
Understand your target audience, preferences, needs, and pain points. For instance, if you target luxury shoppers, they may look for elegance, sophistication, and aspiration in your messaging.
Consider your brand’s traits reflecting your personality. For instance, Dove soap offers a calming vibe while Red Bull focuses on providing high-octane energy.
Ensure your social media tone is memorable. This could be casual, formal, or descriptive.
Have a style guide for your social media, ensuring consistency across different platforms. Consistency in the typography, filter, color palette, and effects provides a distinct and well-defined look.
Leverage customer feedback. Use sentiment analysis and customer feedback to adapt your voice. If necessary, rebrand before resetting.

Create a Content Calendar

A content calendar is a document that outlines when and where you will publish new content. It's a good way to ensure a streamlined follow-up of social media content by:

Ensuring a steady flow of content. This can also streamline communication between the creative, editorial, and marketing teams regarding content creation tasks, responsibilities, and deadlines.
Ensuring that you diversify different types of content to cater to the various preferences of your audiences and platforms.

Here are the steps to follow in creating a content calendar:

Choose a tool for social media scheduling that fits your team's content size and needs.
Integrate it with the other messaging platforms you are using.
Choose tool demos before you make the final choice.

The calendar should consist of different content formats, such as:

Blog posts. These should contain keywords, title, description, URL slug, and images.
Videos. This includes video files, captions, script links, and thumbnails.
Podcasts. This consists of a script link and an interviewee thumbnail.

Add details like the publishing date, media links, and stakeholders to each calendar entry. Then, it is time to schedule your content. Follow these steps for content scheduling:

Determine the size and resources of your team to determine your publishing schedule for different social media platforms.
Ensure that the content publishing frequency is manageable.
Have realistic deadlines and topics in your calendar.

Ensure that you brainstorm a wide range of social media posts to appeal to your target audience and meet your business goals.

Partner with Influencers

You can use influencer marketing for your social media strategy in areas such as:

Content creation. Influencers can help you create engaging and authentic content that will resonate with your followers. This can especially be helpful if you target the same target audience, helping grow your engagement and reach.
Market launchers. If your goal is to enter a new market, you can use influencer marketing to introduce your brand to a bigger and more relevant audience and enhance your brand’s visibility.
Credibility winners. You can leverage influencers’ recommendations to enhance your brand’s goodwill and credibility.
Spotlight stoppers. When you partner with a good influencer in your niche, you can easily create a buzz around the brand. The right influencers use the latest social media trends, tools, and tactics to put your brand ahead of the competition.

When leveraging influencer marketing, consider the following best practices:

Avoid over-focusing on vanity metrics. A common mistake brands make when choosing an influencer is looking for one with the highest follower count. A good approach would be to focus on influencers with high engagement metrics, as these are more likely to drive conversions and conversations.
Have clear guidelines. Agree with the influencer on the content deliverables, usage rights, timelines, and promotion costs. Clear guidelines on these issues can increase trust and enhance your ROI.
Give the creator freedom. While guidelines are suitable for ensuring a good working relationship, don't curb the employees' creativity with stringent guidelines. The most important thing is to ensure you provide them with the core message and expected outcomes.
Focus on long-term partnerships. This is a good way of increasing trust and enhancing brand recognition. It also enables the influencers to become more familiar with your brand and own the campaign, increasing the chances of your campaign's success.

Content Scheduling and Publication

Another key part of a social media strategy is scheduling when your content will go live. With the right tool, you can plan your content to go live at the most opportune date and time. This ensures consistency in posting and that your content is delivered at the right time, even during holidays and peak events.

Some social media platforms have built-in scheduling features for content scheduling. If there are no native tools, you can use third-party tools such as Hootsuite, Sprinklr, and Sprout Social.

These tools have more benefits than the native tools, as they have more advanced reporting, the ability to schedule social media posts in bulk, and multiplatform scheduling. The tools also allow you to schedule several posts simultaneously. Their main downside is that they usually come at a cost.

Increase Engagement

If you want to find out if your strategy is working, social media engagement is a critical metric enabling you to do that. Therefore, the number of likes, comments, and shares is an important metric to track. To create meaningful engagement, ensure that your audience is taking part in sharing better experiences, taking part in discussions, and taking part in user-generated content.

There are different ways to increase your social media engagement, such as:

Use polls and surveys. These are great tools for generating ideas, sparking conversations, and entertaining your audience.
User-generated content (UGC) can help increase engagement with your audience. Therefore, respond to it by sharing, liking, and commenting.
Hashtag campaign. Social media hashtags are great for increasing brand awareness and participation in your campaigns.
Interactive content. Ensure you create content encouraging interaction, such as quizzes, giveaways, and contests. In addition to driving engagement, these elements can create a sense of community.

Keep Monitoring and Optimizing

A social media strategy isn't complete without tracking its performance. You must monitor social media metrics, analysis, and performance. You can leverage social media analytics to:

Determine the trending content, platforms, and topics.
Determine the audience sentiments as positive, neutral, or negative around your brands and campaigns.
Determine the improvement areas and ensure that data-driven decisions are made.

When analyzing the performance of your social media strategy, pay attention to:

Post interactions in a day.
Engagement rates.
Performance of your influencer marketing campaigns.
The number of posts an influencer has created.

If you notice an underperformance in your social media marketing campaign, analyze the root cause and then optimize the campaign to ensure success.

In Conclusion

A common misconception brands have is that a social media strategy is about publishing content. However, it's about creating quality content that brings meaningful engagement and drives connection with your audience. Whether your goal is to increase brand awareness, sales, or customer loyalty, a good social media strategy will enable you to do so. If you are wondering how to get started, our detailed guide will prove helpful.