How a classic marketing analysis can make your social media that much better.
The SWOT Analysis is a tried and true method for marketers to dig a little deeper into their business’s marketing strategy, but it’s much more versatile than many realize. SWOT lends itself immensely to the planning and scheduling required in the hectic social media landscape of 2020. A core benefit of the analysis, for both marketing and social, is it places you and your business in a position to understand where you are, where you want to be, and everything you have to do to get there.
For those looking for an all-encompassing lesson on SWOT, I love this comprehensive guide, but for those who want a quick explanation, it can really be broken down into the 4 quadrants the acronym represents: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Strengths outline what you’re doing well and any competitive advantages apparent in through the business model. Weaknesses are areas where the business could be lacking, whether it be factors holding you back or things you’re just plain not the best at. These two make up the internal section of the analysis, and it’s important to keep in mind to be as objective as possible through these two sections.
The final two represent the external analysis of the SWOT. Opportunities are outside forces or events that can be converted into strengths by the business, in other words, what’s possible for the brand? Threats are the exact opposite. It’s important to be aware of any outside forces that could hinder marketing or business efforts, and anything that could surmount as a weakness down the road.
There are numerous benefits to conducting a robust SWOT analysis, as it’s a core component to most modern marketing strategies, however, I think there are unique benefits to be seen through applying the SWOT analysis to social media.
First and foremost, it allows you to gain a strong sense of where your social media efforts currently stand and It’s a great transition into conducting a social media audit. Taking the time to analyze yourself in both a negative and positive light can accentuate strengths of your social media weren’t fully aware of, as well as illuminate how to utilize those strengths as they apply to upcoming opportunities. It’s likewise vitally important to clarify possible threats and account for them within your social media strategy.
Planning ahead is another key feature conducting that a SWOT can make easier for you and your brand. By first identifying the threats within your social media, like competitors or possible changes to a social platform’s algorithm, you can be better prepared in the future to integrate countermeasures within your strategy. This means having smarter goals and a future-proofed strategy that looks to improve upon its weaknesses and fully utilize its strengths.
Conducting a SWOT analysis may also have benefits that extend beyond just its 4 categories. Through really digging into your current practices and strategy, SWOT encourages a deep dive into your current social data. Objectively assessing what you are and aren’t good at means looking at the numbers and analytics to see what’s doing well and what needs a little love. This means finding exactly who your engaged customers are and who aren’t buying into the current campaign or strategy. This could help you narrow your target audience just that much more and really set you ahead for your next campaign or investment into a new platform.
Besides the internal breakdown of performing a SWOT, it also enables you to truly create SMART, data-driven goals that are based of real opportunities, not just speculation. This is done through knowing yourself and knowing where and who comprises your target audience. With demographics really being spread between the multitude of social channels, it’s vitally important you approach the latter half of the SWOT with your target audience in mind. Certain opportunities may present themselves on some platforms but could truly be a threat if your target audience doesn’t respond well through that platform.
Let’s look at an example to make this a little bit clearer. TikTok’s current user demographics are dominated by a massive (I mean massive) amount of young female users. So, for a DTC brand looking to break into the beauty and skincare market, they could absolutely find and engage with their audience on TikTok, leading to plenty of opportunities to be turned into strengths by investing their money and effort in the platform. However, for a brand focused on B2B or targets older consumers, investing in TikTok could present a huge threat by wasting resources, time, and effort on a platform lacking their target audience and consumers to engage with. Thus, if you don’t have your target audience in mind when considering which social platform to invest yourself in, you run the risk of missing your audience completely.
