A social media strategy should fit on one page and answer five things: what you are trying to achieve, who you are talking to, what you will say, where you will say it, and how you will know if it worked. A 40-slide deck is a strategy nobody can act on.
Here is the whole template, inline and ungated. Copy it, paste it, replace the placeholders.
The template
# Social Media Strategy: [BRAND NAME]
**Period:** [START] to [END]
**Owner:** [NAME]
**Last reviewed:** [DATE]
---
## 1. Business goal this supports
[One sentence, taken from the business plan, not invented for this document.]
## 2. Social media objectives
| # | Objective | Metric | Baseline | Target | By when |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [OBJECTIVE] | [METRIC] | [CURRENT] | [TARGET] | [DATE] |
| 2 | [OBJECTIVE] | [METRIC] | [CURRENT] | [TARGET] | [DATE] |
| 3 | [OBJECTIVE] | [METRIC] | [CURRENT] | [TARGET] | [DATE] |
Three objectives maximum.
---
## 3. Audience
| | Primary | Secondary |
|---|---|---|
| Who they are | [DESCRIPTION] | [DESCRIPTION] |
| What they want | [NEED] | [NEED] |
| Where they already are | [PLATFORMS] | [PLATFORMS] |
| What makes them act | [TRIGGER] | [TRIGGER] |
| What we currently get wrong with them | [GAP] | [GAP] |
**How we know this:** [SOURCE: customer interviews, sales calls, platform
audience data, survey. If it is a guess, write "assumption".]
---
## 4. Positioning
**We are the [CATEGORY] for [AUDIENCE] who want [OUTCOME], unlike [ALTERNATIVE],
because [PROOF].**
**Tone:** [THREE ADJECTIVES] and never [TWO ADJECTIVES].
---
## 5. Content pillars
| Pillar | What it covers | Share of posts | Proof we can sustain it |
|---|---|---|---|
| [PILLAR 1] | [DESCRIPTION] | [X%] | [SOURCE OF MATERIAL] |
| [PILLAR 2] | [DESCRIPTION] | [X%] | [SOURCE] |
| [PILLAR 3] | [DESCRIPTION] | [X%] | [SOURCE] |
| [PILLAR 4] | [DESCRIPTION] | [X%] | [SOURCE] |
Shares add to 100%.
---
## 6. Channel plan
| Platform | Role | Primary format | Posts/week | Repurposed from | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [PLATFORM] | [Primary / Support / Experiment / Not using] | [FORMAT] | [N] | [SOURCE] | [NAME] |
| [PLATFORM] | [ROLE] | [FORMAT] | [N] | [SOURCE] | [NAME] |
**Platforms we are deliberately not using this period:** [LIST, with the reason]
---
## 7. Cadence
| Day | [PLATFORM] | [PLATFORM] | [PLATFORM] |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | [PILLAR/FORMAT] | | [PILLAR/FORMAT] |
| Tue | | [PILLAR/FORMAT] | |
| Wed | [PILLAR/FORMAT] | | [PILLAR/FORMAT] |
| Thu | | [PILLAR/FORMAT] | |
| Fri | [PILLAR/FORMAT] | | |
**Total per week:** [N] posts
**Production capacity per week:** [N] posts, [N] hours
---
## 8. Production workflow
| Stage | Who | When | Tool |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ideas | [NAME] | [CADENCE] | [TOOL] |
| Drafting | [NAME] | [CADENCE] | [TOOL] |
| Design / video | [NAME] | [CADENCE] | [TOOL] |
| Approval | [NAME] | [CADENCE] | [TOOL] |
| Scheduling | [NAME] | [CADENCE] | [TOOL] |
| Community replies | [NAME] | [DAILY WINDOW] | [TOOL] |
---
## 9. Measurement
| Metric | Source | Reviewed | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| [METRIC] | [SOURCE] | [Weekly/Monthly] | [NAME] |
**Engagement rate definition:** [engagements / impressions OR / followers]
**Report goes to:** [WHO], [CADENCE]
---
## 10. Risks and constraints
| Risk | Likelihood | What we do about it |
|---|---|---|
| [e.g. single person owns all production] | [H/M/L] | [MITIGATION] |
| [RISK] | [H/M/L] | [MITIGATION] |
**Budget:** [AMOUNT] for [WHAT]
**Hard constraints:** [e.g. no paid, no faces on camera, regulated claims]
---
## 11. Review
Next review date: [DATE]
Strategy is wrong if: [THE CONDITION THAT WOULD MAKE YOU CHANGE IT]How to fill each section in
Section 1. If you cannot trace the social work to a business goal that existed before this document, the strategy will be judged on likes, because nothing else is available.
Section 2. Three objectives. Each needs a baseline, or you cannot report progress. If you do not have a baseline, spend two weeks collecting one before setting the target.
Section 3. The “how we know this” line is the important one. Most audience sections are fiction written confidently. Writing “assumption” next to a claim costs nothing and prevents a year of building on it.
Section 5. Four pillars is the practical ceiling. The “proof we can sustain it” column kills the pillar that sounds great and has no source of material: if a pillar depends on customer stories and you get one a quarter, it cannot be 25% of posts.
Section 6. The role column matters more than the platform list. A support channel that gets repurposed content and 15 minutes a week is a legitimate choice. Pretending five platforms are all primary is not. Write down the platforms you are skipping, with reasons, so the question stops being reopened monthly.
Section 7. Fill the cadence grid, count it, then compare with your actual production capacity on the line below. If the grid says 14 posts a week and capacity says 8, change the grid. This single comparison prevents most strategy failure.
Section 9. Fix the engagement-rate definition here and copy it into every report. Our engagement rate calculator makes the difference between the two bases obvious.
Section 11. Naming the condition that would make you abandon the strategy is what separates a plan from a wish.
What most people get wrong
Setting objectives with no baseline. “Grow engagement by 30%” is unmeasurable if nobody recorded the starting point. Run an audit first.
Planning a cadence the team cannot produce. The most common cause of a dead account is a strategy that specified daily posting from a team with four hours a week. Section 7 exists to catch this before it happens.
Treating every platform as primary. Attention divided across six platforms usually produces six mediocre accounts. Two good ones beat six neglected ones, and the channel plan should say which two.
Confusing pillars with formats. “Reels” is not a pillar. “How our products are made” is a pillar, and it can be a reel, a carousel or a text post. If your pillar list is a format list, redo section 5.
Writing it once. A strategy with no review date becomes wallpaper. Section 11 has one.
Skipping the production workflow. Section 8 is where strategy becomes operations. A strategy that does not name who schedules the posts describes an outcome, not a system.
Making the cadence hold
The cadence grid in section 7 is the piece that decays first, because it depends on someone remembering. It is more durable as configuration than as a document.
That usually means: pick the weekly slots once, then fill them in batches rather than daily. Writing a fortnight of posts in one sitting and dropping them into a fixed queue is closer to how the grid actually gets honoured. If you are running this for several brands, a strategy per brand and a separate workspace per brand keeps the channel plans from bleeding into each other, which is the setup we describe on the agencies page. There is more detail in our guide to content batching.
The short version
One page, eleven sections. Three objectives with baselines. Four pillars, each with a source of material. A channel plan that names the platforms you are skipping. A cadence grid checked against real production capacity. A fixed engagement-rate definition. A review date and a condition that would make you change course.