What’s your social media content strategy? Is it turning heads? Is it helping your business get results?

You understand the importance of having a social media presence today. But simply posting a couple new blogs each week does little to actually build a following.

Retweeting some interesting industry news may give you a bump in impressions. But are you really building a brand or engaging people?

You need a strategy and consistent implementation to do that. Let’s explore simple steps you can take now to develop this kind of plan and execute it.

How to Create Social Media Content Strategy

 

1.Constantly adapt  to the changing Social Media Landscape

Social media is constantly changing. What may have worked just a few years ago could completely flop in the current social media landscape.

New social media trends emerge.

Consumer behavior changes. People grow tired of overused trends. What’s at the core continues to work, for example, video will never go out of style. But how you use it to engage people may change a lot.

This isn’t new. It’s been going on for years. 

. While those with more passive share strategies have seen their reach shrink, others have seen it increase because they adapted.

We’re not just giving you a strategy that’s good for today and gone tomorrow. This head-turning social media content strategy is about sustainability. Get results now and long-term.

It all starts with knowing who you want to engage.

 

2. Get Clear on Your Audience

You need an audience who are more lasting to get results with social media. Fill your handles with your most likely customers. It may take a little bit longer. But as revenues increase year over year, it becomes clear that it’s worth it.

Your target audience isn’t every person who might possibly buy your product or service. They’re your most likely customers. They’re the people that are likely to keep coming back. They keep buying more. They share your brand with others.

 

3. Build brand awareness

How do you know who your target customers are? The answer is data. Whenever possible use real customer data to determine who your target is.

Find things out like:

Basic demographics (gender, age, education level, etc.)

What are their pain points?

What are their goals?

Who/What do they trust as a source of information? 

How do they buy?

What technologies do they use?

Where do they spend time on social media?

How do they speak with their peers?

Gathering this information helps you begin to see the patterns in your client base. They may be invisible to you now if you’re not trying to gather this kind of information.

 

4. Post Consistently

Ever had a “sort of” friend who you haven’t heard from in a while? Maybe you spent a lot of time together  when you were younger or during a difficult time. But when you stopped hearing from them, they simply left your mind. It’s like they no longer exist.

Out of sight out of mind.

On social media, it’s about 100 times that. People are constantly encountering media. They experience many competing messages. If they’re not hearing from you, then they forget about you.

A basic frequency should be maintained, and this varies by platform. But more important than that is when your posting. When you post at the same times of day, same days of the week, then something happens:

Set a clear publishing schedule and don’t wait until the last minute to create needed content. Plan ahead. Then schedule your posts so they always go out at the right time.

And finally, if you are just starting out, it is best to focus first on two to three social media platforms. Determine your target audience and check which social media platform they use most of the time. Then you can start from there.

 

5.Share Quality Content

Social media can be brutal. Just ask some of the many people who’ve been completely criticized or even fired for saying or sharing the wrong thing. It only takes one click to unfollow someone if content isn’t up to standards.

While consistency is important, quality is essential. The content you create and share represents your brand.

A poor quality video can quickly become a viral meme that negatively impacts your company. Dark or blurry Instagram photos do not delight people or make them want to follow your brand.

Have a plan. Put the people and systems in place to deliver consistent, quality content. Set up quality control and analytics to review content performance on the backend.

Lack of consistency and lack of quality are the top two reasons so many social media strategies fail to deliver an ROI. 

 

6. Use More Video

45% of people now watch at least an hour of social media videos a week. The average Facebook video is 10-30 seconds. That’s a lot of videos!

82% of Twitter-users say that videos are the primary reason they go there. 92% of people share videos with others.

Videos should be part of your social media content strategy. People not only engage with them. Videos can be directly tied to increased revenues for businesses.

 

7. Try Live Video; You’ll Like It

It’s natural to be a little wary of live video. But people love live video. It feels authentic. It makes brands seem more vulnerable and therefore approachable.

Start with a plan. Unless you’re a master at improvising. It’s rarely a good idea to just start “rolling”.

Don’t overproduce it. Live videos are not supposed to look polished and edited. That’s what people like about it. It’s real.

Be a risk taker. Sometimes things won’t go as planned during live video. Try to roll with the punches and have fun with it. Being too organized or over-prepping your team for a live video will often make things awkward. The audience will feel it.

 

8. Prioritize Customer Engagement

There are two kinds of engagement on social media. There’s the engagement that you get from customers when you share something. Those are the likes, loves, upvotes, shares and comments.

Then there’s the engagement they get from you. That part is often more complicated for businesses. It’s the being social part of social media that escapes understanding. But how you interact with people on social media determines how they engage with you.

In order to earn customer engagement,

Respond to comments. If the comment is very basic (eg, great article), then a “Thank you. We’re glad you enjoyed it” is the minimum required. If the person took some time to craft a thoughtful comment, a more meaningful and personalized response is in order. Show that you’re listening. You’re engaged. You’ll get more engagement.

   

Answer questions/complaints promptly. Over 47% of complaints now go through social media messaging. People expect businesses to answer questions and complaints through social media promptly. If you’re not reviewing and responding to messages within at least 24 hours, you’re not engaged. Your customers and followers won’t be engaged either.

 

9. Giveaways/Contests

Contests are one of the best ways to engage people on social media. A well-designed contest can increase your visibility online 10X or more. It can generate high quality leads for your company. It can even help you make quick sales if they need to buy a product they don’t already have to participate.

Knowing what your goal for the contest is will help you design a contest to meet that goal. Let’s look at some goals and the type of contest that helps you reach it.

 

10.Brand Awareness/Reach

Ask customers or potential ones to create and share content around your brand. Give them:

A theme

Basic rules

Deadline

Unique hashtag to use

Then let the creativity take over. Offer a prize that your target audience will really appreciate.

Search for that tag. Find your winner. Announce the winner.

If you currently have very few followers, use social media ads to target an audience with the contest.

 

11.Lead Generation

Make a video and attach a lead generation form. Offer a chance to win in exchange for contact information. Once you have a lead, begin nurturing that lead with an email newsletter, email offers, or other highly relevant content.

 

 12. Leverage Paid Social Media

Can you build a social media presence without any paid advertising? You can. But it takes a lot more work. And it takes months to years longer to build what you could with a relatively small social media advertising investment.

If you want a head-turning social media presence, you need social proof. When people see that others follow, like and share your brand, they also want to check it out. Advertising helps generate this, especially in the beginning when you don’t have many followers.

It’s hard to gain traction with 500-1,000 followers, especially when they’re not that engaged.

Paid social media advertising helps you get your social media content in front of the right people, your likely customers.

Use advertising to complement your social media marketing and get the most out of your social media content strategy.

Boost posts. If you have a post that got some good engagement, pay to have other people see it. Earn new fans.

Run a like campaign. A like campaign is one of the most misunderstood campaign types. No, it’s not to get more likes. A like campaign shows content that has been liked to the friends of the person who liked it. This is more social proof that makes the friends want to check you out.like campaign