There’s a lot more to creating a social media content strategy than meets the eye. It’s not just about posting content every day, but more about what you post. Think of your social media content strategy as the blueprint for your success across all social platforms.
You need to put together a solid strategy by dedicating time and resources to plan your approach, map out what you wish to achieve, out exactly what you want to achieve, how you will get there, and how you will measure the impact that your efforts have on your goals.
However, it’s not always easy to build a social media content strategy, especially if you have never done this before. And that’s what Kool Kanya’s social media program will teach you!
Steps to build the perfect social media content strategy
Developing a social media content strategy is easier than you probably think. And the following steps can help you define your goals, create and publish content to a schedule that works for your audience, and measures your success as well.
Here’s what you have to do:
1. Establish goals for your content
The first step in creating a social media content strategy is to identify what you wish to achieve, as this can help you choose the right path. If you don’t have goals established, it implies that you are working blindly. Without set goals and KPIs, you cannot measure the effectiveness of your efforts.
Your goals should be:
- Specific - Your goals should be clear and specific to allow a solid focus on what needs to be achieved.
- Measurable - You must be able to measure the progress of the goals you have set to know when you've achieved them.
- Attainable - Your goals should be realistic, but challenging enough to motivate you.
- Relevant - The goals you have set for yourself should be relevant to your wider business objectives and make sense when achieved.
- Time-bound - It is ideal that you set a timeframe for goals to be measured against to maintain focus.
Your social content strategy should begin with goal-setting, as this is something that will help to shape the following steps in the process.
2. Understand your audience
Understanding your audience’s profile lets you tailor your content and speak directly to these people. When you take a targeted approach, it is more effective than trying to engage too wide of an audience with a single strategy.
Also, it’s important to know the times when your audience is the most active on each channel as this can help you generate an increased level of engagement by sharing your content at that particular time. Also, did you know that you can gain these insights from your main social channels?
3. Choose the right social media platform
While there are many social media platforms, you don’t have to be present on every other platform. You have to focus your efforts on finding the right platform where your audience is active and more likely to engage with your content.
- When it comes to B2B and B2C businesses, Facebook is more relevant as it supports a whole load of different content formats, ad targeting options, and users.
- Twitter isn't for every business, as the platform has a fast-moving nature. But it serves as a perfect customer service platform for businesses that deal with high volumes of support and service queries.
- LinkedIn is the perfect place to position individuals and companies as experts through a content strategy based on thought leadership and a strong focus on editorial content.
- YouTube is the world's second-largest search engine, and pretty much everyone benefits from the platform.
- Instagram gives you access to engaging photos and images and makes it easier to engage your audience with content that is more visual.
4. Plan social media content and pick a format
When you start planning your content, a great starting point would be to map out the message you need to share with your audience. Also, once you have decided on the type of content you’ll work with, you need to choose from the different formats that are available to you, and let’s not forget that you have to create engaging content.
Some of the popular content formats are:
- User-generated content
- Live streams
- Contests & competitions
- Case studies
- Influencer marketing collaborations
It is important that you don’t rely on a single content format if you wish to drive engagement. Ensure that you find more time needed to produce each different piece and maintain a consistent publishing schedule.
5. Create a content calendar
As you start planning, you need to set up a content calendar that will help you with organising posts. Once you have a publishing schedule in place and have created a content calendar, everything is in place.
It is vital to develop a habit of adding your planned social content and sticking to it.
6. Publishing your content
Publishing your content on social media can be a time-consuming task. You can make it easier to block out time each week to create your content and have it posted across your platforms at the time that you think can make the most impact.
7. Analyse and measure the content's performance
You might have set attainable goals, but you have to track your content's performance against those goals. It is ideal to analyse the performance of your social efforts on a weekly basis and measure these against the goals and KPIs that you set.
There isn’t one particular social media strategy that will guarantee success, but if this strategy is related to your industry and audience, you will succeed in your endeavours. Create a plan that has longevity and helps your brand and business grow!
