Unsure about what to post on social media? Don’t have a strategy yet? For most businesses, it’s important to reach your audience on social media. So how does a social media strategy help you achieve this?
A simple social media strategy can make a difference to the bottom line. A social media strategy should:
- Provide a summary of what you want to achieve
- Guide your actions and intentions
- Serve a purpose
- Communicate your primary and secondary objectives.
In this post, we’ll walk you through 5 steps for planning your social media strategy.
1. Audit what you’re currently doing
A social media audit can help you identify what current channels you’re using, and the types of content you’re posting. You will need to create an audit document and think about your goals for each channel and evaluate your existing strategy. To carry out an audit:
- Look at all your channels and the posts that are performing well
- See what competitors are doing on their social channels
- Revisit who your audience for each network is
- Examine your analytics dashboards and use these metrics to set new goals each month e.g. ‘I want 100 new followers on LinkedIn by the end of December 2018.’
2. Add new accounts and upgrade existing ones
You’ll need to decide what networks to focus on. For example, your LinkedIn objective may be geared towards being a thought-leader in your industry. Comparatively, a Facebook network could assist your business with sales, and assist with customer reviews about a product or service.
Your social media strategy doesn’t need to be complicated. If you feel stretched, cut back until you have a plan figured out.
3. Set up a social media content calendar
Your content calendar holds everything together. Here you can decide what content types you want to post and when. For example, if you want to drive more traffic to the blog, it’s worth posting regular links to your blogs on your social channels, so audiences remain glued to your blog.
You’ll also want to create a posting schedule. This will show the dates and times you publish across each channel. Plan your social activities here, from media links to calls to action – it’s a repository for day to day posts and campaigns. To get started, it can be helpful to plan your social content two weeks ahead of time.
4. Automate your posting schedule
Automation can make things a lot easier. Try social media automation tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule your content at your desired time. Obviously, a well planned content strategy will need to account for responding to comments, so you’ll need to schedule in time to check and update your feed regularly.
5. Keep testing, measuring and adjusting your strategy
You may not get it right the first time – and that’s okay. As you start to implement your plan, be deliberate about tracking your results. Some posts will perform better than others. Always be mindful that it’s better to think about quality over quantity.
There are plenty of great ways to continually test your strategy, such as:
- Testing posts across different channels
- Getting feedback on your social strategy
- Measuring analytics.
Remember that your social media strategy should be a living document that you can update in real time. Don’t be afraid to update it, change it or start from scratch.
Keeping your content in check is just the beginning. If you’re feeling lost for time and need quality web copy turned over in a matter of days, you’ve come to the right place. Shuttle Rocket specialises in writing professional web copy for small businesses across Australia. Even our Homepage Revamp can pack a punch! Get in touch today!