8 things to include in your social media strategy
By Jon Reed, Social Media Strategist
Social Media
To develop a successful social media presence, it pays to spend a bit of time developing a strategy first, says Jon Reed.
Social media is one of the best ways to connect with potential clients or customers, build a large, engaged audience – and promote your products. Whether you’re new to social media, or more established but wanting to improve, it pays to think strategically about what you want to achieve.
Your social media strategy may also change over time. You may want to re-launch, re-focus or reach new markets - and what once served you well is no longer getting the desired results. This is a good time to revisit your social media strategy - or start a new one.
Think through these eight elements when putting together your social media strategy, if you really want to see results.
1. Aims and objectives
What do you want to achieve from your use of social media? Don’t just think about sales: think about building your online platform. That includes follower growth, email signups, raising your profile and positioning yourself as an expert in your field. What are your long-term aims? To write a business book? To win an industry award? To give a TED Talk? Think big.
2. Measures of success
How will you know when you’ve succeeded? Decide in advance what success looks like for you – and what your ‘key performance indicators’ (KPIs) will be. These are likely to include clickthroughs, follower growth and engagement rate (average number of reactions per post per thousand followers, expressed as a percentage). Be specific. You might, for example, want to double your Instagram followers by the end of the year, or get your Twitter engagement rate up to 0.05% before a product launch.
3. Social media audit
Where are you now? Unless you’re starting from scratch, you probably have at least some social channels that you’ve been using – albeit perhaps not as frequently or effectively as you would like. Which platforms are you using? How many followers do you have on each? How does this compare with the number of people you follow (your follower ratio)? What type of content are you posting – and how frequently? What is your engagement rate? And how does all this compare with industry benchmarks? Do a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). It can really give an honest picture of what’s going on and why.
4. Audience and competition
Who are you trying to reach? Where can you find them online? Think about the main market you want to reach, and any secondary markets. What platforms do they use, and what sort of accounts do they already follow? Look for similar accounts to your own – and follow their followers. This can be a great way of building your own follower numbers. Think about key influencers too – follow, like and retweet them.
5. Social media platforms
Which platforms will you use? Blog, podcast, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn? You don’t need to use everything – start small and focus on one or two that you will actually use. Your audience analysis will guide you as to which will be best for reaching your target market – but think too about what you are comfortable with and have time for. Write a one-page strategy for each, including platform demographics, content types you will post, your ‘calls to action’ and measures of success.
6. Content strategy
What types of content will you post? For example: quote cards (images overlaid with quotations, tips or facts relating to your product, service, business or organisation); ‘behind the scenes’ posts; news and announcements; links to relevant blog posts and articles in your topic area; and any specific promotions that you will run, such as hashtag contests. Put together a spreadsheet, with rows for each platform and columns for content types, frequency, calls to action and measures of success.
7. Editorial timeline
When will you post this content? Some of your content will be ‘evergreen’ and can be posted anytime; some will be tied to critical dates, seasons – or trending hashtags. You don’t need to plan this in excessive detail, but draw up a spreadsheet with months in the first column. Start with the forthcoming year. Include any important dates for your organisation, such as launches or conferences. Then add seasonal events and hashtags that you may want to tie in to promotions - or simply relevant content. These may be seasonal periods or days such as #MothersDay, awareness months or days such as #BlackHistoryMonth, #PrideMonth or #InternationalWomensDay - or even annual trending hashtags, such as #NationalSelfieDay. Then add a column for each platform you’re using, and specify what the focus of your content will be for each month.
8. Email strategy
Yes, this is a social media strategy. But it’s a good idea to include a section on email marketing. You need to build up your follower numbers – but you also need to build your email list. Email tends to be a more effective sales medium than, say, Twitter. Give people an incentive to sign up to your list – such as a useful, accessible PDF download – then promote it on social media. Make sure you collect the necessary consents for email marketing. These are stricter since the introduction of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May 2018.
I tend to put together a document of up to 20 pages, depending on the number of platforms – plus a couple of spreadsheets: a content strategy and a timeline. But you don’t necessarily need a huge amount of documentation in advance, or to launch into using every platform listed in your strategy at once. Your strategy is a living document that will evolve as your needs change over time. But you do need one. Otherwise you can waste a lot of time and energy simply adding to the noise.
A version of this article first appeared on The Bookseller website on 10 September 2018.
Jon Reed, Social Media Strategist