Mastering Social Media Strategy with Milou Pietersz

In this insightful interview, Milou Pietersz, a content marketing strategist and CEO of Simply Media and Advertising, shares her expertise in creating effective social media strategies for businesses.

She highlights the importance of understanding target audiences and aligning content with business goals. Entrepreneurs and marketing professionals will find valuable insights into building long-term social media presence and learning from real-world success stories.

This conversation is a concise guide for anyone looking to leverage social media for business growth.

Crafting Targeted Social Media Strategies

SBS – How do you determine the right social media strategy for a diverse range of businesses?

Milou – At its core, social media strategy is all about each client’s target audience, understanding where they are, what type of content they enjoy consuming, and how to align the client’s content to push the needle toward their business goals.

While each client may be different, the elements of the social strategy are the same. Starting with the target audience, we then move into competitive analysis to see the industry standards and conduct an audit of our client’s current bios and social presence. From there, we can build a custom content strategy and engagement strategy, all backed by data that we can track month over month to analyze trends and pivot/double-down where needed.

In short, it doesn’t matter what industry you are in, your business goals, or your backstory; every client deserves a custom social strategy tailored to their needs. We are not just posting for the sake of posting.

Key Elements for Sustaining Social Media Presence

SBS – What are the key components of building a successful long-term social media presence?

Milou – Every social media manager and strategist worth their salt will tell prospective clients that social media marketing (especially organic) is a long game. Month one is entirely dedicated to onboarding, understanding the target audience inside and out, and setting up brand creative and authentic copy tone. From there, months 2–3 are all about testing. We are testing what formats resonate with our audience, what type of prompts result in the desired responses from our audience, and what type of visuals stop them from scrolling on.

Once a full quarter of data is collected, we can see trends. Each account is different. For example, one of our clients has a reel/video-heavy account that we tailor to our audience that loves consuming talking reels. Another client has top-performing educational carousels leading to blogs, so we tailor education-heavy content via graphics. We can only know this after months of testing, so ROI doesn’t happen in week one.

The key components of a successful long-term strategy are patience and a willingness to test. Once you understand precisely what your audience loves (and it might not be what you expect), you need to be willing to double down and put extra effort into creating a strategy pivoted to that type of content.

Real-Life Success Stories in Social Media Marketing

SBS – Can you share a success story where social media significantly impacted a business?

Milou – Absolutely! I have two success stories to share with you. The first is my account. We started Q4 2023 with a goal to land two paid partnerships on social media. We created a strategy and framework called the PLSP framework — PR legwork, landed feature, social content, and pitch leverage.

As a result, we landed seven partnerships, three of which were long-term (ranging from 3 to 6 months). The total revenue brought in from this strategy was $16,500 for Q4. One example of how we landed a partner is by first landing a traditional feature in Forbes and strategically leveraging the featured content to tag a brand we use and love.

Once the feature went live, we pushed it to social media and tagged the brand we wanted to partner with. From there, we gathered social data and approached them with a partnership pitch, resulting in a long-term partnership that has generated $10,000.00 to date.

The second success story I’d like to share with you is a client. This strategy can be replicated for anyone attempting to book services through social media. While analyzing my client’s metrics, we discovered that one particular topic and format outperformed the rest. So, we doubled down and increased the amount of reels on that topic the following month.

From there, a few went viral. But we didn’t want just to achieve reach; we wanted to convert new followers to clients. So, we created a Reels-heavy strategy that funneled into a freebie and then a paid offer on the same topic. The result? Fully booked masterclasses with 15 seats, with 4+ of the attendees converting into ongoing high-ticket clients.

Both success stories are built on strategy and a lot of testing.

Common Social Media Pitfalls for Businesses

SBS – What are the most common mistakes businesses make on social media?

Milou – Honestly, impatience. Building a solid social strategy takes time. If you are a new business, just starting out, here are some tips to separate you from the sea of accounts out there:

• Study your target customer, how they talk, what they view, how they engage, and their purchasing habits
• Invest in your branding and be consistent
• Test out multiple post formats (Carousel vs. Photo vs. Reel vs. Quotes) and understand what moves your audience to engage
• Most of all, be a good steward of your account, care about the people you talk to, and create content for them, not for yourself. That will sell

Customizing Content Across Different Platforms

SBS – How important is it to tailor content to different social media platforms?

Milou – Extremely important! Each platform’s audience consumes content differently. What works on Instagram might/might not work on LinkedIn. What works on TikTok might/might not work on Facebook.

Educate yourself on which platforms give you the best shot of speaking in front of your target audience. Understand the limitations of each platform; for example, you cannot put a link in an Instagram caption as you can on Facebook and LinkedIn. So don’t even try!

Strategies for Community Engagement and Growth

SBS – What strategies do you recommend for engaging and growing a business’s online community

Milou – Engagement, both inbound and outbound, is at the core of our strategies. We aim to attract our target audience with our content and prompt them to move to the next step. With proper guidance, your followers will move through your funnels.

One of the tools my team uses religiously is Many Chat. If you are unfamiliar with this tool, you can create auto-comment responses and DMS when your target audience comments a specific word.

For example, last month, our client had a masterclass. We created a caption prompting followers to comment on a keyword, and then Many Chat directly DMS them the link to register (we’re talking over 400+ comments!). You can do this for newsletters, masterclasses, and paid and unpaid offerings. The sky is the limit, and it is great for building communities because it is instant!

Staying Ahead in the Fast-Changing Social Media Landscape

SBS – How do you keep up with the rapidly changing trends and algorithms of social media platforms?

Milou – I am constantly learning and happy to share where I gather inspiration and new ideas and keep on top of the changes. One of the first places I go to is Instagram Creators. They always share a ton of insights, write updates, and announce when the latest features drop.

Another place I consistently return to is Social Media Today. Their news and articles are top-notch. I also monitor SM Examiner’s YouTube Channel and SMMW for meta creators.

Final thoughts for you: If you are a social media manager or a business owner trying to DIY social media, keep strategy at the core and understand that it takes a lot of testing, time, and perseverance.