How To Keep My Social Media From Self-Destructing?
Why does a brand need a social media strategy before diving into a social media campaign? What happens when they don’t?
Want more fans? Well you better get a plan in place. Success follows direction — think, plan, prioritize, execute, measure, and optimize. So, let’s stop doing that self-destruct thing and GET IT TOGETHER.
“You’ll need a plan, but without a clear strategy, how do you prioritize the activities for a plan? Think strategy first, plan second.” — James Gurd
To save your social media take my advice…
1. Get Organized.
No one likes a disorganized Dane. Organization gets thoughts and ideas in order and turned into context. It keeps you in line with your goals and keeps your timeline on track. In the end it will save time. Trust me, you will thank me later when I say create a content calendar and invest in automated posting. This gets your big picture ideas out and gives the opportunity to refine and get creative with each post. Not staying organized may cause you to fall victim to panic posting. Posting content all willy nilly, jeopardizing your cred with followers.
2. Create Personas for Potential New Audiences.
You want to impress the people you are targeting, the best way to do that is to get inside their head. Study the audience, become the audience. Figure out the behaviors, level of engagement, most utilized social network, and where they live. Now that you understand your target audience, you must connect the role social media plays in their lives. Do they demand social interaction like a star who lives on social network, or do they spurn like a skipper who doesn’t know how to slide into a DM. Not understanding your followers can lead to a disconnect between them and the organization, resulting in lack of followers. People want light, entertaining, educational, purchasing power at their fingertips. Give them what they want, and they will be putty in your hands.
The same could be said about your competition. You don’t need to be in the FBI to spy on their social media efforts. Lean back, watch, and listen. You will quickly learn the dos and don’ts based on response from your competitors’ actions. They have a great idea? Good, one up it! Bad idea? Don’t touch it with a 10-foot pole. The competition is giving you the upper hand, the ability to fill the gap where they flopped. Use this to your advantage. Too moral to steal your competitors’ ideas? Well get ready to flounder… unfortunately you run the risk of making their same mistakes or being too similar. Now where does this get you in the market? In the middle when we want to be on top!
3. Know Your Platforms.
Understanding your audience correlates to understanding social media usage. Developing organization and social media goals along with target audience behaviors will determine the best networks for you. Video content: use youtube or facebook, photos: use Instagram. News, hashtags, and gifs: twitter. Data and industry articles are for LinkedIn. Ask: Where does you audience ‘hang out’ and how can you match their personality with content without losing sight of company goals. Only choose sites based on resources available, don’t find yourself not able to keep up with all accounts. You do not want to bite off more than you can chew. Lack of consistent posting can stunt the growth of the brand causing a dark media account. If you do not want to waste the time invested use these secondary channels during campaigns. This way you can reach a wider demographic with a campaign only active for a specific time frame.
4. Show Up and Show Off — (with marketing).
Detailing your marketing plan will lead to success in building your brand. Establish your social advertising game, but don’t forget to showcase your build organically. Although some companies prefer one over the other, it is in your best interest to incorporate both. While the social ads drive the sales, the organic social develops the story of your organization. It steers the conversation from annoying saturation to authentic and time well spent. This steers us in the right direction to establish a relationship between the organization and the customers, keeping us ahead of the game in the Consumers’ Decision Journey.
The CD Journey is essential in the planning process. It keeps you one step ahead of the purchaser, keeping you in the game. This is a powerful tool that bring relationships into the digital environment, it is also fragile and easily cut short. It takes the customer from consideration to evaluation, and eventually to purchase. Most stop after buy because they don’t plan for the added benefits of the after. This can be detrimental to your continuous loyalty following the purchase. Be the brand that connects and helps the consumer, not the one who robs the bank.
5. Audit’em Danno.
Social Media is always changing and so should your plan. Plan A never works out so do not assume it did, maybe you’re on plan J. Re-evaluate your past quarter or half year and figure out what worked and what tanked. Who engaged? Where did they engage the most? What was the favorite content? How do we look next to competition? Is this the audience I had in mind? Ask yourself these questions and then re-envision, take risks, and test content. Get a feel for the wants and need of your audience. Not treating your strategy as a living document can leave you stagnant with no ROI to show. The best critic is yourself, be ready to be super critical.
Based on the pros and cons, a social media strategy is essential to the successful operation of your social media plan. Just remember a couple of things — it is the road map of your daily tasks, and it defines what you do next. Incorporate goals because without them we can’t measure ROI and it’s hard to achieve results without knowing. Preparedness can 100% enhance your reputation, not prepared and you’ll be destroyed.
And if you don’t like my advice…oh well. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Sources:
file:///C:/Users/Branch%20User/Downloads/9781789660319-Chapter-06-Campaigns-A-Quick-Step-Guide-to-Channel-Selection-for-Your-Object%20(1).pdf
file:///C:/Users/Branch%20User/OneDrive%20-%20Contemporary%20Services%20Corporation/Documents/Important-%20Kelli/Graduate%20School/UF%20Classes/Fall%202020/Social%20Media%20Management/Week%202/Reading%20Assignments/978178~1.PDF