Everyone has come to expect a social media presence for all businesses, no matter what industry they’re in. While some businesses have established a strong social presence, many have not taken the necessary steps to engage their audience on these channels. It’s not rocket science, but it’s still a fairly new way to market and can be tricky to perfect.
With that in mind, GreenMellen Media is here to save the day! Keep reading to discover our guide to creating a killer content strategy for social media.
Define Your Social Goals
This seems to always be the first step when planning out any marketing strategy, and it makes sense why. By defining your goals early and deciding what you want to achieve from your social channels, you’ll be better prepared when creating your posts. At this stage, be as detailed as possible and strategically think with your audience in mind. Also, it’s good to know that all social media channels are different and have a different audience, so take some time to develop separate expectations for each individual social network.
Check Out Your Competitors
Again, this tends to be at the beginning of any marketing strategy, but researching your competitors’ pages will help you in more ways than one. When reviewing their pages, make note of what your pages should be doing, what they should avoid, and where you can excel within your space.
Let Your Brand Identity Shine
Social media is one of the best places to showcase your branding, so make sure you have a strong grasp on it. This will help you determine what kind of content you will need to produce, what photos you will use for your accounts, and which platforms you will be active on.
Choose Your Social Media Channels
This is probably the most important question to ask during this process: What social media channels should your business be active on? It’s wise to be on name-brand social media channels like Facebook, but keep your audience in mind when selecting others. Are they on Pinterest or Instagram? Would you benefit having a Twitter account to reach these people? Think of where they would engage with your brand most and create an account for your business.
Create an Editorial Calendar
Mapping out your content calendar is a very crucial step to ensure when and where you’ll post your content. Here’s a tip: Do this on a monthly basis, but keep important posting days like holidays and sale seasons in mind.
Deploy and Engage
Okay, you did all the hard work and now is the time for your brand to start publishing posts, tweets and photos on your social channels. When it comes social media, you can’t just post something and say you’ve done your part. Social media is, well, social; in order to have an active channel, you have to engage with your followers. Reply to all comments and questions, and even thanking someone for sharing your content could potentially earn you a loyal follower.
Analyze and Optimize
If you really want to amplify your social media presence, constantly analyze your performance. Most, if not all, social networks provide handy analytics and insights for business pages, so take advantage of them and try to understand what’s working and what’s not. From there, optimize your content wherever needed and track your progress again. This trial-and-error mentality will do wonders for your presence in the long run.
Keep our guide in mind when building out your content strategy for social media. Your business will start engaging with your audience where they are the most and may even gain new customers from your efforts.
To learn more about social media, contact GreenMellen Media today!
