Categories Growth Hacks, How-to's

What is a SWOT Analysis: How to do it for Social Media Marketing?

What’s the one thing that marketers chase? Numbers.

And what are the ways to achieve those numbers? Well, that can’t be answered in a snap.

There are multiple things at play which drive a brand to its growth. But the only thing that matters is to create goals to improve those numbers.

Because without goal-based marketing, your efforts are pointless.

And here comes, Swot analysis.

If you want to check what’s going well for you and what needs improvement, then SWOT Analysis is your answer.

But, what is a Swot analysis, after all? This article breaks down the benefits of SWOT analysis and how to use it for social media marketing.

So, What is SWOT Analysis?

SWOT Analysis

Swot analysis is one of the top important factors for any business’s success.

Why?

Simply because in SWOT Analysis, “SWOT” stands for these four different terms:

  • Strengths
  • Weaknesses
  • Opportunities
  • Threats

Over the years, many businesses have used this technique to understand what they lack and how they can improve it.

You can find how many companies in various spheres implement this strategy to grow rapidly and beat their competitors. They have made this analysis an integral part of their business strategies before capturing a market or launching a new service or a product line.

Moreover, this strategic planning can also assess current and future potential risks.

Why assess risk?

The reason is that no business owner wants to fail, and assessing risk is the top priority in securing the financial loss, avoiding marketing costs, and other unexpected situations.

Also, it would encourage your employees to come up with innovative ideas and help in better decision-making processes.

However, organizations must stay true to their data points and use SWOT Analysis only as a guide. A clear view of every aspect of SWOT Analysis is pretty crucial to the whole process.

Pro Tip: If your business is related to e-commerce, you can perform a SWOT Analysis for each product and service.

What is SWOT Analysis for Social Media Marketing?

Did you know that a good social media expert implements SWOT analysis to identify the full positioning of the company?

That’s why marketing experts consider this as one of the best marketing strategies for a brand.

When you apply the basic rules and principles of a SWOT Analysis in a social channel, it becomes the SWOT Analysis for social media marketing.

However, in Social SWOT Analysis, our primary goal is to look deep inside our social platforms.

So, first and foremost, you should try to find the strengths and weaknesses of your social media platform. Once it’s done, switch to the opportunities and check if you can take advantage of anything.

Finally, we acknowledge threats or what issues your social channel is currently experiencing.

Now, to make it much easier, let’s break down all these four terms of SWOT Analysis and see how it works.

How Does SWOT Analysis Work for Social Media Marketing?

Do you know that you might start getting positive results even before performing a Social SWOT Analysis?

The biggest reason behind it’s that many social media agencies don’t even know about their common business goals.

However, as SWOT Analysis requires accurate and realistic data points, you might get a reality check before performing this analysis. But, you might remain still unsure about how to perform a SWOT Analysis for Social Media Marketing.

Here’s how it goes:

  • Strengths: Firstly, we’ve to acknowledge the Strengths aspect of our SWOT Analysis. Remember that every other business or media agency has different sets of goals. Moreover, your business’s strength might depend on your objectives. For instance, your main goal can be increasing the reach. If you have an active community of fans or customers, it can become your new strength.
  • Weaknesses: Secondly, the Weaknesses also depend on your business’s goals and objectives. Let’s take the example mentioned above again, but you don’t have an active community this time. Moreover, as you checked, there’s a lack of effort from your end to reach more audiences or build a community. Hence, it shows that your marketing agency is currently struggling with regular user interactions.
  • Opportunities: Now, that you’re aware of the positives and negatives, it’s time to capitalize on some Opportunities. For instance, if you’re struggling with audience reach, you can consider newer or trending social media channels to gather some attraction.
  • Threats: Lastly, you might realize that some threats are already present as you’re trying to widen your channel’s reach. You can consider other media agencies or your competitors as a threat to your business. Thus, it’s necessary to identify your competitors and keep updating your business goals.

What’s Next in SWOT Analysis?

Now that you’ve recognized all four aspects, you might have a long list of what to do. While it’s easy to start picking each objective, you might end up wasting a lot of time.

As a result, it’s always best to find a correlation in this list of actions.

For instance, let’s say you’re eager to remove the first weakness off your list. You’ve started planning for it, and taking various suggestions. However, one of your current strengths can already eliminate that weakness at once.

Hence, it’s essential to find a correlation between all aspects and then take action.

Pros & Cons of SWOT Analysis in Social Media Marketing

Now that we’ve learned the definition and working of SWOT Analysis, let’s see how it can benefit your media agency.

Moreover, just like other techniques, it also has some limitations.

Let’s find out the benefits first:

  • Ability to understand your media agency better and to get a reality check.
  • Allows you to develop your business goals according to the competition and current market situation.
  • With SWOT Analysis, you can quickly determine the weaknesses and eliminate them regularly.
  • Lastly, it allows you to capitalize massively on the present opportunities.

Now, let’s have a look at some of its limitations too:

  • While being powerful, SWOT Analysis can generate a lot of unnecessary information.
  • Sometimes, you might end up with too many but no clear solutions.

Other Alternatives to SWOT Analysis

Luckily, you’re not short of options, and there are tons of other techniques available.

For instance, many media agencies prefer NOISE Analysis or Internal Analysis to improve their business.

Apart from this, you can also consider getting direct feedback from your clients. This way, you’ll be able to understand your business’s strengths and weaknesses in more depth.

However, SWOT Analysis is pretty tough to ignore despite its limitations and can produce effective results.

Thus, if you’re still not sure about what to do, we’d recommend an accurate SWOT Analysis for your business.

Taking SWOT Further: TOWS Analysis

Just like the SWOT analysis case, TOWS Analysis also stands for Threats, Opportunities, Weaknesses and Strengths.

So what’s the difference between SWOT and TOWS?

All in all, the biggest difference between a TOWS and a SWOT is the relationship between the internal and external factors.

Here, it’s all about examining how they link up, connect, impact and influence each other.

Overall, TOWS is an extension of SWOT focusing on the relationship between each internal and external factor you list.

Is the TOWS Analysis an extended version of SWOT?

Yes. It is.

tows-analysis

Here’s a breakdown for you to get deeper into the same and get the most from the analysis.

Strengths to Opportunities (S-O)

The S-O focuses on how you can utilize your strengths to respond to the possible opportunities in the targeted market.

Strengths to Threats (S-T)

The strengths to weaknesses case examines how strengths should be used to secure the threats of the business.

Weaknesses to Opportunities (W-O)

The W-O can be the hardest consideration.

Why?

Because it doesn’t always come naturally! Think for a second about how your opportunities can remove your disadvantages.

Weaknesses to Threats (W-T)

Finally, the W-T highlights how weaknesses can come into play, strengthening the possible threats of your business.

Takeaway

So that was SWOT analysis for you. Remember it works the same way for social media as it does otherwise. You can even spy on your competitors by checking their social media strategy and turning their weaknesses into your strengths.

However, you must remain faithful with data points and other information.

Lastly, we can conclude that SWOT Analysis is a reliable tool to analyze your business. Hence, if your business requires a reality check, don’t ignore the importance of a SWOT Analysis.

And for everything social don’t forget to use SocialPilot. From scheduling your posts to performance analysis, it helps you excel at social media marketing. Go for its free trial to know more.

Frequently Asked Questions

🌟 How is SWOT analysis used in marketing?

SWOT analysis stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats. It is a strategy used to evaluate a business’s positioning and how to strengthen it or improve it depending on the analysis. It gives a framework in which both internal and external factors are assessed to give a well-rounded picture.

🌟 What is SWOT analysis in marketing with examples?

SWOT analysis may include factors like competition, pricing, customer behavior and trends, market position, and more. These are listed into four categories to further assess the brand/company value.

🌟 What are threats in SWOT?

In the SWOT terminology, a threat is anything that could have the potential to damage the reputation or business of your brand or company. This could be your competitors, or shortage in supply or any other factor that could hamper your business.

🌟 How do you layout a SWOT analysis?

SWOT analysis can be done in the following steps:

  • Identify the objective of your business
  • Create a grid
  • Name each grid into categories
  • Add strengths and weaknesses
  • Assess yourself

🌟 Why is SWOT analysis important?

SWOT analysis is a meticulous methodology that helps you assess where your business is heading to. Through SWOT analysis, you can figure out the loopholes in your business processes which will help you improve your market position.

Author: Albert Badalyan

Albert Badalyan is a Marketing and SEO Expert, having 8+ years of work experience with various Startups, Enterprises, and Corporations, currently collaborating with Blueground.