5 Tips for Creating a Social Media Strategy
Do you have a social media plan? If not, you should! A well-defined social media strategy provides you with guidance as to what to publish, where to publish it and when to publish it. Following this plan increases the chances for visibility and reach and ensures that you are continuously putting fresh, relevant content out for your audience. But from time to time, it’s not uncommon for social media plans to need some redirection.
Below are five tips for creating a stronger and more buzz-worthy social media strategy.
1. Align Company Goals with Content Goals
Your content should complement your overall business goals. Say for instance you are a local heating and cooling company selling your services to residential homeowners. It’s fall, and you want to encourage people to schedule a tune-up for their heating equipment. Contributing posts about the benefits to having a fall tune-up and the warning signs of a failing furnace align with your overall goal of scheduling more appointments.
Generally speaking, content addresses one of these four goals: generate traffic, create a following, generate interaction or generate revenue.
2. Follow a Big-Brand Mindset
Big brands do a few things very well. For starters, they find where their customers talk and then “go deep” with these issues. Second, they create content that people want to read and talk about. It’s never dull, boring or repetitive. Finally, big brands use social media to listen to what their customers are saying. Find ways to apply this same approach to your own content. Give customers incentives for stopping into your store or following you on social media.
3. Be Smart About Posting
On Twitter, it’s fine to post about 5-10 times a day, while on Facebook, 1-4 times is adequate. Don’t be afraid to pay to boost some of these posts, either. If you have an important message that you want to reach a larger audience, you can boost the post and take advantage of targeting features. Also be mindful about the times that you are posting on social media. When is your audience likely to be on?
4. Schedule Engagement
If you’re simply writing posts and scheduling them out automatically, you’re only doing half the job. And only doing half the job results in half the rewards. When writing out your social media plan, schedule in time for engagement. It’s best to post content in real time and respond to comments within the first few minutes. This is how great conversations are started. By leaving time for this engagement, it’s much easier to stay committed to it.
5. Talk to Your Customers
A good rule of thumb is to talk to your customers about 80-90% of the time. You can then use the other 10-20% to talk about your business and how it can help your customers. Center your content around topics your audience wants to learn about: questions they ask Google, pain points, etc. Bring your expertise to the table while talking to your audience rather than sounding like a narrative. Throw in a few jokes or experiences they can relate to. Readers love when they feel understood.