Do you post on social media whenever you have an idea to come to mind, slapping it together using a random Canva template and hoping for the best?

Or do you have a written strategy that you execute month to month, planned six months in advance?

Well, if you’re like 67% of businesses, you have no documented social media strategy.

You post randomly, hoping something sticks, burning budget on content that goes nowhere, and wondering why your competitor with half the budget is crushing it.

They're converting 81% of consumers who are influenced by social content to make spontaneous purchases.

And they're building real revenue streams—not just follower counts that mean nothing.

The difference? A proper social media strategy template.

Not some vague "post three times a week" advice, but a documented roadmap that turns scrolling into sales, engagement into revenue, and content into conversions.

At Freitas Films, we don't just create videos—we create content that stops the scroll and drives action. And we know that great content without strategy is just noise. Let's fix that.

Why You Need a Social Media Strategy Template (And Not Just a "Vibe")

Let's be brutally honest about what happens without a strategy: you waste time, waste money, and get inconsistent results that you can't explain to anyone who asks, "So, is social media actually working?"

The problem is simple: Posting without purpose is expensive. Every minute spent staring at a blank caption box, every post that flops, every campaign that "seemed like a good idea" but tanked—that's all preventable with a proper plan.

That’s all the time, money, energy (and probably a few monthly subscriptions to creation tools) being spent on something that isn’t giving you a viable, sustainable return.

With this in mind, your opportunity to improve is massive.

Social media marketing generates $4 or more in revenue for every dollar spent when done strategically.

Social commerce is set to reach $1 trillion by 2028, growing at nearly 14% annually.

And 81% of consumers make impulse purchases based on what they see on social media multiple times a year.

A strategy template is your competitive advantage.

It's the difference between throwing spaghetti at the wall and operating like a professional media company. It gives you a framework to make decisions, measure what's working, and scale what drives results.

Think of it like this: you wouldn't launch a product without a business plan. You wouldn't run a campaign without a creative brief.

So why the hell would you spend thousands of hours and pounds on social media without a documented strategy?

The template doesn't lock you into rigid rules—it gives you a roadmap that saves time, prevents mistakes, and ensures every post has a purpose beyond "well, we haven't posted in a few days."

What Actually Goes Into a Social Media Strategy Template?

A real strategy template isn't a one-page checklist you fill out and forget. It's a working document that covers everything from big-picture goals to day-to-day execution. Here's what needs to be in yours.

Goals & Objectives: Know What You're Actually Trying to Do

Start with the end in mind. What does success look like? And no, "get more followers" isn't a goal—it's a vanity metric that means absolutely nothing if those followers never buy, engage, or care about your brand.

Your goals need to be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. More importantly, they need to tie directly to business outcomes that matter.

Good social media goals look like this:

Increase website traffic from social by 40% in Q2
Generate 100 qualified leads per month via Instagram and LinkedIn
Drive £50,000 in attributable revenue through social commerce by year-end
Improve brand awareness among 25-34 year-olds by reaching 500,000 impressions monthly
Boost engagement rate from 1.5% to 3% across all platforms within six months

Notice what all of these have in common? They're measurable, they're tied to timelines, and they connect to real business outcomes. "Grow our presence" doesn't cut it.

Be specific about what you're building toward.

Know Your Audience (Actually Know Them, Not Just Guess)

You can't create content that resonates if you don't understand who you're talking to. And no, "millennials" or "small business owners" isn't specific enough.

Build proper audience personas that cover:

Demographics: Age, location, income, job title, education
Psychographics: Values, interests, pain points, aspirations, lifestyle
Platform preferences: Where do they actually spend time? What content formats do they consume?
Buying behaviour: What influences their decisions? How do they research? What objections do they have?

Here's what this looks like in practice: If you're selling premium homeware, your audience might be 30-45-year-old homeowners with disposable income who value design, follow interior design accounts on Instagram, watch home renovation content on TikTok, and make purchasing decisions based on aesthetics and quality over price.

They're scrolling at night after work and on weekends, they care about sustainability, and they're willing to pay more for products that feel special.

That level of specificity changes everything about how you create content, which platforms you prioritise, and what messages actually land.

Platform Selection: Be Where Your Audience Is, Not Everywhere

The biggest mistake brands make is trying to be on every platform. You spread yourself thin, create mediocre content, and get mediocre results across the board.

Pick 2-3 platforms maximum and dominate them. Here's how to choose:

Facebook (3 billion users): Still massive, especially for 30+ demographics. Best for community building, local businesses, and long-form storytelling. 39% of consumers prefer it for social purchases.
Instagram (2 billion users): Visual storytelling powerhouse. Essential for lifestyle brands, fashion, food, design, anything that's inherently photogenic. Reels are king—lean into short-form video. 29% use it for purchases.
TikTok (1.94 billion users): Gen Z's kingdom, but millennials are flooding in too. If your audience is under 35, you need to be here. Short-form video only. 36% use it for purchases, and that number skyrockets for younger demos.
LinkedIn (900+ million users): B2B territory. If you're selling to businesses, decision-makers, or professionals, this is non-negotiable. 22% say it delivers the highest B2B ROI.
YouTube (2.5 billion users): Long-form and short-form video. Great for tutorials, deep dives, product demos, anything educational or entertaining that benefits from more time.

Look at your audience data. Where are they actually spending time? What platforms align with your content strengths? Don't chase trends—chase your customers.

Content Strategy: What You Post and Why It Matters

Your content strategy is the backbone of everything. It defines what you create, how often, and why anyone should care.

Content pillars are your themes—the 3-5 core topics you'll consistently cover. For a production company like Freitas Films, that might be: behind-the-scenes production content, client success stories, video marketing tips, industry trends, and bold creative work. Every post should ladder up to one of these pillars.

Content formats matter more than ever. Video dominates—78% of people prefer learning about products via short video, and 93% of marketers are increasing their video spend in 2025. That doesn't mean ignore everything else, but it does mean video needs to be central to your strategy.

Mix it up:

Short-form video (Reels, TikToks, Shorts)
Carousels and infographics
Behind-the-scenes content
User-generated content and testimonials
Educational posts and how-tos
Stories and ephemeral content

Posting frequency depends on platform and capacity. Consistency beats volume. It's better to post three times a week with killer content than seven times a week with garbage. Find a rhythm you can sustain and stick to it.

Brand voice and guidelines keep everything cohesive. Are you bold and irreverent? Professional and polished? Witty and conversational? Document it. Make sure everyone creating content knows what your brand sounds like.

Content Calendar: Plan Ahead or Scramble Forever

A content calendar is the difference between strategic execution and daily panic. It's where strategy meets reality.

Plan at least two weeks ahead, ideally a month. Map out:

What you're posting and when
Which platform does each piece goes on
Copy, hashtags, and calls-to-action
Visual assets needed
Campaign tie-ins and promotional content

Use whatever tool works for you—Google Sheets, Notion, Trello, dedicated social media schedulers like Metricool or Hootsuite. The tool doesn't matter. The planning does.

Pro tip: Batch your content creation. Shoot a month of video content in one day. Write all your captions in one sitting. Design all your graphics at once. It's exponentially more efficient than creating content reactively every single day.

Engagement & Community: Stop Broadcasting, Start Conversing

Social media isn't a megaphone—it's a conversation. If you're only posting and never engaging, you're missing the entire point.

Build engagement into your strategy:

Respond to every comment within 24 hours (39% of users expect responses within an hour)
Answer DMs promptly and personally
Ask questions in your posts to encourage interaction
Reshare user-generated content
Run polls, Q&As, and interactive Stories
Join relevant conversations in your industry

The ROI of engagement is real: 65% of customers who receive a response to positive comments would recommend the brand to others. That's free word-of-mouth marketing just for being responsive.

Stop treating social like a billboard. Treat it like networking at an industry event where every interaction is a chance to build a relationship.

How to Measure What Actually Matters on Social Media

Here's where most strategies fall apart: they track the wrong things. Follower counts, likes, impressions—these are vanity metrics that make you feel good but don't pay the bills.

What you should actually measure:

Reach & Impressions: How many people are seeing your content? This is your awareness metric. It tells you if you're getting in front of new eyeballs.
Engagement Rate: Likes, comments, shares, saves divided by reach. This tells you if your content resonates. Industry average is 1.4-2.8% in 2025—if you're below that, your content isn't landing.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): How many people are clicking your links? This is your consideration metric. It shows interest beyond passive scrolling.
Conversions: The big one. Website visits, form fills, purchases, demo requests—whatever your goal is, track it. Use UTM parameters to attribute conversions back to specific social posts and campaigns.
ROI: Revenue generated minus cost of social media efforts. This is what actually matters to your business. If you're spending £5,000 a month on social (content creation, ads, tools, time) and generating £20,000 in attributable revenue, you've got a 4x ROI. That's a strategy worth scaling.

Use platform analytics, Google Analytics, and social media management tools to track all of this in one dashboard. Review weekly, analyse monthly, adjust quarterly.

The brands winning on social aren't guessing—they're measuring, learning, and optimising based on real data.

How to Create Social Media Content That Converts

Strategy is worthless without great content. And in 2025, "great content" has particular characteristics.

Short-form video is king. 69% of consumers prefer learning about products through short video over any other format, with 78% of users watching video content every week, 55% every day. Platforms prioritize video in their algorithms, meaning video content gets exponentially more reach and engagement than static posts—if you're not creating video, you're invisible.

Authenticity beats polish. People can smell overly produced, corporate content from a mile away. They want real, relatable, human stories. Behind-the-scenes content, founder stories, customer testimonials—this stuff performs because it feels genuine.

Visual quality still matters. Authentic doesn't mean amateur. Shaky footage and bad audio scream, "don't trust us with your money." Professional production quality builds credibility. There's a difference between authentic and low-effort.

Hook them in 3 seconds or lose them forever. Attention spans are brutal. Your first frame needs to stop the scroll. Bold visuals, provocative questions, surprising statements—whatever it takes to make someone pause.

At Freitas Films, we specialise in creating scroll-stopping video content with personality—the kind that makes people stop, watch, engage, and remember your brand. Because great strategy needs great execution.

Common Social Media Strategy Mistakes to Avoid

Even with a template, it's easy to screw this up. Here are the mistakes that kill social media strategies:

No documented plan. "We'll figure it out as we go" isn't a strategy. It's a recipe for wasted time and money.

Trying to be on every platform. You end up mediocre everywhere instead of dominant somewhere. Pick your battles.

Inconsistent posting. Posting five times one week and zero the next tanks your reach and kills momentum. Consistency matters more than volume.

Ignoring analytics. If you're not measuring performance, you have no idea what's working. You're flying blind.

Broadcasting without engaging. Social media is social. If you're not responding to comments and DMs, you're missing the entire point.

Copying your competitors. Inspiration is fine. Carbon copies are forgettable. Find your own voice and lean into what makes you different.

Build the Strategy, Create the Content, Win the Game

A social media strategy template gives you the framework to turn chaos into clarity and guesswork into results. It's the difference between hoping something works and knowing it will.

But here's the thing: a template is only as good as the content you create to execute it. You need bold, cinematic, scroll-stopping content that people actually want to watch—not corporate fluff that gets ignored.

At Freitas Films, we don't do bland. We create video content with personality and punch—the kind that stops thumbs mid-scroll and turns viewers into customers. Whether you need social media content, explainer videos, or full production work, we bring 10+ years of experience to every frame.

Ready to build a social strategy that actually drives results? Let's make it happen.

Social Media Strategy Template: How to Build a Plan That Actually Works