Social Strategy

Social Strategy

This is the top-level plan: which channels, what for, how to win, and at what cadence. It sits above content-pillars (what themes) and batch-content-plan (what posts) and tells them where to point. Everything downstream inherits the choices made here.

The core idea, and what separates strategy from a to-do list:

Strategy is choices and trade-offs — above all, what not to do. "Be on every platform, post consistently, engage your audience" is not a strategy; it's a list of platitudes that spreads a brand thin and wins nowhere. A real strategy picks the few channels where the audience is and the brand can win, deliberately drops the rest, and commits to one clear objective and a differentiated angle.

When to use this

• Starting a social presence from scratch, or resetting a scattered one.
• Deciding which platforms to be on (and which to quit).
• Before content-pillars / batch-content-plan, to set the objective and channels they serve.

When NOT to use it: if a current social-strategy.md exists and is sound, load it and move on unless the user wants to revisit.

Step 0 — Read the foundation first

Load brand-profile.md, audience-research (audience.md), and content-pillars if present. Strategy is downstream of who you are, who you're for, and what you talk about — without those it's guesswork. Run the missing ones first where it matters.

Step 1 — Set one primary objective (tied to the business)

Pick one primary objective social must serve right now — awareness, audience growth, community, authority/positioning, leads, or sales — chosen from what the business actually needs (a pre-launch startup needs awareness/audience; an established one needs leads/sales). Add at most one secondary. Define a meaningful metric, not a vanity one, and be honest about measurement (see references/goals-and-measurement.md). To cascade the objective into SMART targets, per-channel North Stars, and action thresholds, hand off to goals-and-kpis — this skill names the objective; that one sets the numbers.

Step 2 — Select channels (focus, don't spread)

The central decision. Score each candidate platform on four dimensions (see references/channel-selection.md):

1. Audience presence — is the target audience actually there? (from audience.md)
2. Format fit — does the brand's natural content strength suit it? (don't lead with TikTok if the brand won't make video)
3. Goal fit — does the platform serve the objective?
4. Capacity fit — can the brand sustain quality there?

Pick the 1–3 that win on all four. Name what you're deliberately dropping (or running as repurpose-only maintenance). Most brands should start with one primary channel.

Step 3 — Define the strategic wedge

How does this brand win on its chosen channels, given everyone else? The wedge comes from the brand's POV and positioning — a differentiated angle, a distinctive format, a consistent stance — not "post good content" (that's table stakes, not a wedge). See references/operating-model.md.

Step 4 — Set the operating model

A strategy you can't sustain is a wish. Define (see references/operating-model.md):

• Cadence per chosen channel — realistic, matched to capacity; consistency over volume.
• The content engine — how foundation → pillars → plan → produce → repurpose → schedule fit together.
• Phasing — Phase 1 nail one channel; expand only once it works. Don't launch everywhere.
• Capacity/roles — who makes and who engages, and how much time.