Setting up a business social media account takes just a few clicks, but managing it entails a lot more effort and consistency in order to utilise it to its full potential.

Many businesses create a social media account just so they can check it off their list of things to have in their marketing toolkit. But social media is there to complement communications and digital marketing strategies, and a specific strategy needs to be developed for each social media platform you decide to sign your business on to.

Before outlining a strategy, first conduct an audit of your current social media accounts, including a competitor analysis. Once completed, the results of the audit will form the basis of a social media strategy.

Here is a list of things to consider when developing your next social media strategy to take advantage of all its benefits.

Content, content, content

Social media wouldn’t exist without content. To be able to effectively run a social media platform, you need a good stream of content, whether the content exists on your business’s website, another website or from within the social media platform. However, in every case the content needs to be relatable and relevant to your audience.

The results of your social media audit will give an indication of content that has previously worked. For some types of content that didn’t meet the mark in the audit, you may feel it should still continue to published. This is typical in cases where a focused strategy never existed and the content may have not received the right exposure initially based on factors like timing, which we will cover a little later.

Remember that the purpose of your social media accounts needs to be clearly communicated to your current and potential followers. They need a reason to follow you and have your posts on their feed, so what is it?

A picture is worth 1,000 words

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words and this is particularly true for social media. Video and photos are more effective at increasing engagement compared with text-only posts. According to data collected by LinkedIn, posts with images/video had a 98 per cent higher comment rate on average. Data from Twitter has shown the same trend, with visual content receiving three times as much engagement as text-based tweets.

Branded visuals are just as important as selecting the content to publish. With so much exposure to information each day, social media posts need to stand out from the crowd and visuals are the most effective way of doing that.

For example, if you create podcasts and plan to publish them on your social media pages, give the audience an audio snippet of the podcast along with a video visual for greater appeal.

Additionally, social media is a great tool to give your business and brand a face. By posting photos of your employees, your target audience will see your business as authentic.

Plan a step ahead and, during the strategy development stage, create branded visual template for the various social media posts you plan to publish so they are ready to go and don’t delay posting.

Timing is everything

After identifying what to post, and how to post it, the next factor to consider is the ‘when’.

The general rule of thumb for many platforms is that the best days to post are Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursdays, and the best time is in the morning between 8am – 10 am.

Although this is the general consensus, each platform is a little different and the results from the audit should bring more light to your audience’s behaviour and usage of the different social media platforms. When outlining the timing of publishing posts, it should be based on a mix of the statistics from the different social media platforms and your audit.

Frequency is another aspect to consider. Remember that in social media, like in everything else, it is about quality not quantity. If your social media team is publishing more than one to two posts per day, ask yourself if the content really is that newsworthy and important. With the recognition of information overload, each platform is ensuring content on feeds remains relevant to the user, with the use of machine learning algorithms. These rules help to minimise ‘spam’, automatically ranking content in your feed as most likely to be interacted with by the user. So if a page is posting constantly throughout the day, the less likely it will appear on your follower’s feeds, as it more than likely ranks as low quality content.

More posts doesn’t mean more impressions or exposure. Pace out your posting, track what days and times work best and stick to that regime.

Employee engagement

Employees make your business a business. They represent and share the same values as your business, and their skills are the service or product you sell. That is why they are key in helping you spread your message on social media and make for great social media ambassadors. Their social media connections are with like-minded people and even potential customers.

Take LinkedIn as an example. Many employees have a LinkedIn profile and are connected with people from within the industry, within their profession, previous co-workers and more. These people may not be following your business’s social media pages, but having your employees engage with the content you produce means it will show up in their public feeds, and their connections will see your employee engaging with your content. It is like a digital form of word of mouth, as any employee engagement with your page and posts will show up on their feed and their connections’ feeds. This helps to build awareness and brand recognition. And having employees engage with your business’s social media posts is also a great method to gain momentum when starting out on social media.

Encouraging employees to at least ‘like’ a social media post is a great start. Build awareness within your organisation of the importance of social media to the overall business plan and start by setting the example from the top of the organisation.

And that’s it folks…or is it?

It is important to note that even after going through the strategy development process and implementing it, your work on your social media platforms doesn’t end. Every three to six months it is important to go back and take a look at how your social media pages are performing. This ensures that the strategy being implemented is showing signs of success and that the direction chosen still appeals to your target audience. If it is not tracking as well as expected, then it gives you the chance to shift the strategy. There is no one right answer to social media. That is why a loop between strategy and measurement steps is vital to keeping your social media pages effective for longer.

Read more about our social media services and how we can help you accelerate your social media strategy.