Getting Serious About Your Social Media Content Strategy

So you’ve got a Twitter account, a LinkedIn blog, and a Facebook page that you update every so often.

Before you pat yourself on the back for a job well done, consider this: Most social media content strategies fail. If there’s no rhyme or reason to your daily Twitter and Facebook posts, you’re likely losing out on ripe leads you could otherwise be converting. Adding structure and purpose to your social strategy is the first step to building a bountiful social presence. When firming up a limp strategy, keep these four things in mind:

Establish a voice.

People turn to their social media feeds to be entertained or informed — not to be inundated with sales pitches. When posting for your brand, keep this in mind and ditch the kitsch for a more relatable tone.

Establishing a distinct and recognizable voice for your social media presence can help your business stand out from the pack, while earning you followers and even brand loyalty. Depending on your brand and its tone, use social media to crack jokes, dole out tips and tricks, post recipes, or engage in conversation. Just be sure to keep it consistent and to keep it entertaining.

Have a purpose for your social media efforts.

If you’re just sending your social media posts out into the ether in the vain hope that someone — anyone! — will notice, you’re doing social strategy wrong. The whole point of having a social game plan is setting goals you hope to achieve by implementing it. Those goals should be an integral part of strategizing.

Do you want to beef up brand awareness? Are you hoping to increase sales by reaching more potential customers?  Maybe you just want to connect directly with the customers you already have. Whatever your end goal, the best social media campaigns are built around established and attainable objectives.

Time your social media posts wisely.

When you post is almost as important as what you post. Even the best content isn’t going to benefit your overall social media content strategy if it isn’t being seen by the optimum amount of readers. Schedule your content to post at a time when the majority of your followers are on social media platforms, like early morning commutes or midday lunch breaks. There are numerous tools to help you figure out which time of day works best for your brand, but you can also use trial and error to find which time frames yield the most engagement.

Look beyond Twitter and Facebook.

Sure, Facebook’s more than one billion registered users make the platform difficult to ignore, but the monolith isn’t the only social media site around—not by a long shot. There are more than 400 such platforms on the web today, with more being added each month. Depending on the scope of your business, you may consider using Periscope for live makeup tutorials, GoodReads for book reviews, Ravelry for makers, LinkedIn for networking, and so on. The list is endless—it’s about finding the right fit for you.