In today’s world, social media is a critical component of a well-rounded marketing strategy. The benefits of social media are evidenced by the fact that most thriving organizations have learned to embrace it. Although it is not all that complicated to formulate a social media strategy and hit the ground running, successfully maintaining your strategy is something that requires ongoing attention. Through my own experience with social media, I have gathered numerous valuable insights, some of which I share in this article.
- Understand your objectives. Think about what you want to achieve. Do you want to drive traffic to your site? Do you want your followers to frequently share your content for additional leverage? Is your aim to appeal to a certain demographic? Understanding your goals and making sure they align with the overall vision of your organization, is an important starting point.
- Develop a social media calendar. Take the time to outline what content you plan to share, the frequency of sharing and how you will measure your success. Documenting a plan will help you to stay on track.
- Research the channels. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram – each social media platform serves a unique purpose, and it is important to make sure that your content is being positioned on the appropriate channel. Perform research and competitive intelligence to determine where to engage your target audience, and position content accordingly.
- Consider social media tools. HootSuite and Buffer are two examples of social media dashboard tools that can help you to manage your campaign. Utilizing such tools can be money well spent, as it can save time and enable you to easily generate reports that track your success.
- Differentiate in your posts. Robotic, unoriginal posts will not be memorable to your audience. Be creative in your posts, and include calls to action, such as “Unsure of how the new regulations will impact you? Check out this article!” Also, remember to prioritize quality over quantity; it is not the number of posts, but the substance in them, that will garner the most attention and impact.
- Time posts optimally. Pay attention to when you are posting, as this can allow you to get more mileage out of your content. For example, posting on a Friday evening before a holiday weekend is likely not the best timing. Consider spacing posts out – rather than posting something at noon and again an hour later, you could delay the second post, to allow your audience time to fully absorb each post.
- Enhance posts visually. Images are a great way to make your content stand out in the sea that is social media. In addition to static images, also think about including interesting infographics and video, to appeal to the modern audience.
- Measure effectiveness regularly. Sometimes, the best way to learn what works is simply to try something out and measure your results. Periodically run reports to analyze traffic, popularity of posts and audience behavior. Use these findings to improve your social media practices. Stay away from “vanity metrics” – those stats that make you feel good, but add no real value to your marketing strategy. Total number of followers, for example, may not represent active followers who are consistently engaged.
To conclude, remember that a solid social media strategy should be unique to your organizational goals. If a certain approach is not working, step back and try something different. Continue to observe trends and determine ways to differentiate your brand. Truly effective social media marketing is about promoting your content to gain trust and sustainable engagement from your followers.
By Rahini Shankar, Marketing Coordinator, Communications at McDermott, Will & Emery for the July/August 2016 Issue of the Capital Ideas Newsletter.