Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Toolbox: How to create a social media strategy that works

By Bob Decker


The particulars of social media platforms are in a constant state of flux. But if you're a newcomer to social media, or if your company is a newcomer, there are certain rules of the game that don't change that much from year to year and which will help you turn your social media outreach into a fruitful, two-way dialogue. Here are my top five recommendations if you're thinking about launching or relaunching your organization's social media presence.

1. Reach agreement within your teams about what your goal is in being on any social media platform and whom your presence there is for. Look to be as specific as possible.

"Raising awareness" is a lame reason to be on social media. Examples of some good reasons:
  • Showing the company to be a meaningful place to work so people will apply for jobs there (or won't quit)
  • Getting people to come to your event or trade show booth—or wish they had
  • Entice customers to buy something specific from you—and give them a link to do so
  • Encourage people to like, trust, and respect you by pointing them toward useful information that they might not have found on their own
2. Reach agreement within your company about who "owns" your social media channels and how you're going to measure whether social media is working for you or not.

Yes, social media is always going to be a team effort. But you still need to be clear about who's responsible for driving it from day to day, and who's responsible when they're on vacation. 

3. Even if it seems "easier" to go on to each social media site and post things, sign up for and use one of the social media calendaring and posting platforms (like Buffer, Hootsuite, Sprout, and many others). You need this so you can more easily
  • plan ahead for future posts and share the plan easily with your team
  • scale out to more social media platforms
  • enable coordination within your company between different functions (such as marketing and HR)
  • prevent all the unpleasant things that can happen when everything depends on some spreadsheet somewhere that suddenly becomes unavailable for whatever reason
  • measure the effectiveness of what you're doing on social media: most of these platforms are measurement tools as well as planning tools
4. Have in mind a recurring type of post that you can come up with a predictable frequency. Your social media channels need a "pulse," and you need to find that pulse before you launch. 

Here as elsewhere it's important to put yourself in the shoes of the audience(s) you're trying to reach. What's going to be interesting for them? As a starting point, assume they're most interested in their own problems and, if they're looking at social media at all, in being entertained and inspired. For example, as a marketing communications agency Redpines social media channels aspire to bring useful ideas to B2B companies about how to promote themselves more effectively.

Without knowing the specifics of your business, I can't recommend any specific kind of content that will work as an ongoing "pulse" for your social media channels; but I'm happy to make some recommendations in a free 15-minute consultation.

5. Be open-minded about what your goal is in engaging with social media. It's not just about getting more and more followers. For example, LinkedIn can be an excellent tool to help you find specific people in specific roles in specific companies you'd like to be in contact with so you can sell them things. Tools that automate this process, and there are many to choose from, not only save time, they can also circumvent some of the hurdles you'd face as an individual trying to reach out to people from whom you're separated by too many degrees to suit LinkedIn's rules about who you can contact directly.

I hope you found this useful! Some more Redpines resources on social media:










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