Social Media Strategy Guide
Social Media Strategy Guide
Brand recognition is an essential part of growing your business and the New Year is a great time to start thinking about your social media strategy. When it comes to maintaining an online presence, consistency is key. A consistent brand is the number one asset that businesses frequently overlook, but require the most. Trying to market your business without a developed brand is like going down a river with no paddle, where the boat is your marketing and the paddle is your brand. Sure, you’ll be moving forward, but with no real control of where you’re going. Use our resources and best practices to plan out your social media posts for the New Year.
Tips for Effective Social Media Strategy:
Pencil it in
Create a calendar of events pertinent to your business such as ceremonies, openings, and launch parties and map those out first. We like to use Google Calendar because of the collaborative nature of their applications. Don’t forget about local events such as Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest! We use New Orleans Online’s Calendar of Events for a comprehensive collection of all the major local holidays, festivals, and activities.
Write for your audience
Use the key terms that your potential customer (B2C) uses to make your content more relatable and easy to understand such as “back pain” instead of “lumbago.” Statistically speaking, B2C visitors will only read 25% of the content on your site, so make use of those H2’s and bullet points and make your words count. If the main source of traffic to your site is other businesses (B2B), it’s perfectly ok to use industry terms and use your website as more of an informational resource.
Go ahead and recycle old content
You’ve already spent time and energy perfecting the perfect keyword-to-content ratio; don’t let the traffic stop at the publish date. Reusing posts can lead to greater traffic and increase leads in return. If you notice a post that’s getting a lot of traffic, it may be a good idea to update it with new information to keep it relevant and fresh.
Track your victories and failures
Record your engagement, impressions, and consumer interaction to learn which posts work and which don’t. Facebook and Instagram offer easy-to-use graphs that track engagement on your posts in real-time. Download the analytical information to review at the end of each month to determine which type of post receives more engagement (likes, clicks, views, etc.).
5-3-2
There are many “ratio” rules out there, but we like 5-3-2 from CEO of Gist, TA McCann. The 5-3-2 is not a daily quota, but rather a ratio for any group of 10 updates you post across any single or combination of platforms over any timeframe (per month, per quarter, etc.). We suggest to post the 10 over the course of one month, then increase frequency to 2 weeks after tracking and analyzing your data to better target your customers. Just like museums curate works of art, and not create them, you can curate web content.
The rule outlines that businesses should post:
FIVE pieces of content from others. These posts are curated and relevant to your audience to set yourself up as a trusted source of information in your industry. Make sure the posts you’re sharing is not from a competitor, but a business that is parallel to yours. We like to use Feedly to find informative articles for our clients.
THREE should be from your business (or you if you’re branding yourself as an entrepreneur). The posts should be relevant to your audience but not directly selling your products or services. This could be in the form of a video tutorial of how to use one of your product or a blog post about policy changes in your industry that make your business relevant.
TWO should be personal. Something non-work related to help humanize yourself or your brand. It’s a great idea to include a picture of a person to help your follower identify with your brand, even if it’s a stock photo, though an actual employee is preferable.
Overall brand consistency
Your Social Media strategy can be a lot less complicated than you think as long as you create a clear and concise direction early on. Be consistent with your brand’s message whether it’s friendly, professional, or light-hearted. Use the same logo, colors, and font across all of your social media accounts to encourage brand recognition with your customers and potential leads.
Developing a solid brand statement not only helps to maintain the consistency of customer interactions and develop brand recognition, it also helps behind the scenes. An internal brand statement is a critical asset that guides your business’s marketing efforts to better target potential customers and turn your existing customers into advocates of your brand. That’s free marketing, y’all!