Creating a Social Media Strategy

So you want to up your organization’s game on social… but where do you even start!?

First things first is to make a plan. A plan to understand, to organize, to create, execute, and measure. But why is a plan important, isn’t social media supposed to be sporadic? Well, yes and no. The aspect of timeliness with social media is extremely important (especially in regards to taking advantage of the algorithms of some of the platforms) but if you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve on social, who you’re trying to get in front of, or what type of public face you’re trying to give your organization, you’re going to be shooting (or posting) in the dark.

Know what you are trying to achieve with social – What would success look like here? This sets the foundation for your entire social strategy so think about what’s important. Sure, followers and likes are nice but are they helping grow your organization? It’s hard to show ROI on page growth but much easier on click throughs of content or actual conversations on your site.

It’s important to note though that you can have different measures of success for different channels – For instance LinkedIn might be about increasing job applicants, Facebook for increasing attendance for events or leads for specific service offerings, and Instagram (or Snapchat or TikTok) for brand awareness, while Twitter is often used by many organizations as a customer service communications tool.

Understand your audience – Who are you talking to? Who is following you now, is that who you want to be following you? How old are they, where are they located, what industries do they work in, what are they interested in, what is their income? All of these data points can shed light on what type of content will engage them and call them to action.

In terms of mining the data, plenty of tools out there offer insight. Some to check out  are Hootsuite, Google, and Brandwatch.

Do some research on what the industry is doing – This is a time where some light social stalking is encouraged! Are there any competitors who are doing it well (or not) that you can learn from? Aside from giving you ideas about content and industry norms, it can also point out some glaring holes of opportunity you can capitalize on. Maybe there is an entire channel being ignored, or no one is capitalizing on video content, or providing a great customer support experience…whatever it may be, there is often low hanging fruit that can be easier than trying to take bones (followers) from some of the big dogs!

Do an audit of your own channels – If you’ve previously been active on social, what have you done historically that worked or didn’t work? Were there particular types of content or times of the day that seemed to drive higher engagement? Was there a type of content that was tried that totally flopped and most importantly, is your audience even active on this platform?

Also take a look at the way your profiles themselves are set up. There are likely opportunities to update main/cover photos and company information. Additionally, many platforms have offerings to enhance your profile such as enabling Messenger on Facebook to support customer questions or turning on and filling out the Workplace Module on LinkedIn.

Understand what channels will contribute to success – Remember that different channels can have different purposes and measures of success. Pick which channels will help you achieve your overarching goals and then figure out your main strategy / purpose for each to always come back to when designing content for that channel. Also remember that you don’t have to be on every platform – it’s better to pick 2 or 3 and execute a kick-ass strategy than to try to be everywhere with watered down content and an inconsistent posting cadence. If you can’t think of a reason to be on a specific channel (or you know you couldn’t execute on it well) you don’t need to be there.

Get inspired – Are there any brands out there regardless of industry that resonate? What brands do you and your team follow and enjoy following? Why, what draws you in? Is it the visual identity, the tone of voice used, the inspirational nature of the posts, the irreverent and hilarious captions, or the timely response to current events? Take note of what (and why) this engages you and how you could transition those concepts to your own channels.

Define your content pillars & create your content calendar – Based on your goals, what are the main content buckets that you will create content for? These should directly tie back to your main goals for social (be it lead gen, web traffic, hiring needs, whatever!) Examples of buckets could include, Thought Leadership, How To Videos, Company Culture, Employee Spotlight, Client Testimonials, Event Promotions, etc. Remember though that no one wants to be a lead, so make sure your content buckets provide value vs. just promoting goods or services. A good rule of thumb is the 80-20 rule – where 80% of your posts should educate, inform or entertain your audience, while 20% can more directly promote the brand itself.

Once you have defined what type of content you will be sharing, you need to define when and where you will be sharing it. Having a schedule for what time of day specific types of content will be posted to what channel will help hold you accountable to actually posting when you say you will (and not posting too much or too little) but will also help you understand patterns of engagement.

Create the content – But make it interesting and stock pile it! It’s go time to start actually creating your content. Brand standards should dictate general look/tone/feel of your content and some visual templates for things like testimonies, employee spotlights or quotes can go a long way in contributing to a cohesive, consistent look but be careful to keep things interesting! If you find yourself creating something thinking “I don’t like this” or “eh, who cares” it probably won’t inspire your audience either. Keep things fresh by frequently gathering new assets (new photos, videos, etc) and keep your channels in mind! No one expects to see a professional broadcast spot on TikTok just like an in-depth whitepaper might not land on Instagram.

When creating content it’s also a good idea to create a bank of content for each bucket so you’re not constantly scrambling figuring out what to post or having to go to your team every single day to ask for new graphics or videos!

Compile your tools – Get yourself set up with scheduling and social listening tools. Scheduling tools such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social or even HubSpot’s marketing platform allow you to schedule posts in advance (and track metrics) to help your team get ahead of the ball vs. needing to post natively to multiple platforms multiple times per day. There may be some limitations within some tools, but they should allow you to get about 75% of your content posted! Don’t forget that real time engagement with customers and response to current events still needs to remain top of mind though, and that some platforms (such as TikTok) fluctuate trends so frequently that it may be hard to plan in advance.

Other tools to consider looking into include social listening tools to keep an eye on what topics are trending and what people are saying about your competitors. Top platforms include Falcoln.io, Buffer, and again, social giant Hootsuite.

Measure and adjust – Go forth and post…and then analyze and pivot if needed! Social media is not an exact science, and it’s hard to tell what people will be interested in 5 months from now or what new channel people may flock to next year, but you can understand how they interact with the content you are putting forth and make adjustments to the content itself, the channels you are utilizing, the times you are posting or even the audience you are trying to attract to ensure you are hitting those goals to make social the most valuable tool it can be for your business!