How to Create a Social Media Strategy
So you know you need to be on social media, you’ve created all your accounts and even managed to get the same username across the board, but now what?
First, let me start off by giving you a high five for getting this far on your own! Getting the same username on each platform is tough. Clearly you know how important it is for you to be on social media so lets up your game a little bit and get you posting with a purpose.
A social media strategy is a clear plan of action that tells you:
- What you should be posting
- Where you should be posting
- When you should be posting
Grab your pen and paper, it’s time to get started…
WHAT YOU SHOULD BE POSTING:
Before you go posting what you ate for dinner at that new restaurant last night or 12 selfies with your adorable new puppy, take a few minutes to think about your purpose. Simply put, why are you doing this? Are you building brand awareness? Are you promoting your products? Your services? Or are you just having fun? You’ll also want to consider what your community would like to see?
Once you’re clear on what you’re trying to do, it’s time to start thinking about how you can give your audience the content they crave. Will you post interesting articles, beautiful images, inspiring quotes or engaging videos. The possibilities are literally endless, so start jotting down the ideas and getting your list together.
WHERE YOU SHOULD BE POSTING:
Now that you’ve got your list, we should probably figure out where to post those fantastic ideas. It’s time again to think about your community. Oh, you thought this was about you? I cannot stress the importance of posting on the platforms that your audience and target market actually use. This will ensure that the hard work you’re putting in to create great content will more likely be seen and appreciated. So ask yourself, “Where do my people hang out online?”, and then use the list below to figure out what type of content you should be posting on those specific platforms.
Instagram: Photos & short videos. Instagram is all about the visuals so make sure they’re great.
Facebook: A little bit of everything; photos, articles, blog posts, videos, you name it. Make sure you mix it up, people don’t want to see just one type of content.
Twitter: Short sentences, links and photos. Twitter is great for interacting with large brands and celebrities.
YouTube: Video. Good lighting and sound quality are the most important pieces to this platform.
Pinterest: While pinterest is actually not a social media platform it is quite valuable for bloggers, Instagrammers, Youtubers and anyone else with visual content.
WHEN YOU SHOULD BE POSTING:
This is something that’s different for every single account and every single platform, It’s also something that takes a little trial and error to figure it out. A good rule of thumb is posting once a day. Now, I’m not saying once per day on every single platform. What I am saying is that you should post more frequently on the platforms your tribe uses the most and post less frequently on the others. Let me show you what I mean.
This client realized early on that their tribe spent a lot of time on Instagram and through a little trial and error realized that Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays were the best days to post on Instagram. From there they decided to dabble in video and launched a series that is uploaded every Monday on YouTube so that got added to the schedule as well. From there it was decided that Facebook might be a good place to connect with people since there wasn’t a lot of back and forth between the tribe and the client and Facebook is great way for getting to know your people on a more personal level.
- Monday: YOUTUBE
- Tuesday: INSTAGRAM
- Wednesday: INSTAGRAM
- Thursday: FACEBOOK POST
- Friday: INSTAGRAM
- Saturday: FACEBOOK LIVE
- Sunday: ENGAGE WITH TRIBE ON ALL PLATFORMS
Another thing that can be really helpful in determining your best days and times is that most business profiles on social media have some sort of analytics section where you can actually see when your people are most active on that particular platform so your timing becomes more and more of an educated guess.
The biggest thing you need to know about creating a social media strategy is that it’s never finished. It’s something you’ll always be changing and tweaking to fit with whatever’s happening in your business. I know that creating a strategy can seem a little overwhelming so lucky for you, I have created many of these strategy plans and we can work together to create a strategy plan that’s right for your business.
Hey there I’m Kylie Simao, owner of a boutique social media marketing agency dedicated to helping new, local and small businesses who want to promote themselves online using social media.