For a downloadable PDF of the graphic click here.

By Kelli Hulea

If you see a TV sitting on the side of the road with a “FREE” sign, you are likely to ask yourself – Does it work?

If you’re the person who would snag that TV without thinking twice and haul it home, you might turn it on to hear nothing but loud static. And since you jumped into it without asking questions, you’d deserve to be stuck with a broken TV.

Social media is a lot like a free TV. It could seem like a great idea, because it costs nothing (at first), it has the potential to engage an audience and it’s right at your fingertips.

But it can have the same value as a broken TV if you don’t know how to use it. That is why you should have a strategy in place before you jump on the bandwagon for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn.

Here are four key areas to consider and steps you need to take before tweeting or posting.

Audience Analysis: Understand Who You’re Trying to Reach

Who is your target audience? What platforms are they on? What kind of content do they want or need?

Defining your key audiences requires you to take a look at the social media activity of your best customers and those most like them in terms of age, gender and interests. Some insight into where and when they use social media and what most engages them can help shape your social media priorities.

It also helps to look at audience behavior of your competitors because you might be trying to reach similar people.

Plan: Map Out Your Content Before Posting

With an understanding of your audiences and the kind of content they connect with, you need to think about how you’ll develop and deliver your material.

Consider what kind of content you already have accessible.  Does your company’s day-to-day activity lend itself to pictures or video? Do your employees write blogs? Do you advertise in trade publications or newspapers? Are your employees involved in community service?

You should also ask yourself what you’re reasonably able to develop, given the demands of your business. Do you have the time to take photos or the ability to write blogs and news articles?

A good way to break up original content is to share content from others. Who are the experts in your field? Curating information from industry influencers can present a win-win situation because you spend less time creating content and you can still be viewed as an expert.

You should create a content calendar and plan out your posts at least two weeks in advance. But you should also be aware of how you’ll have to tweak and push back content as new, timely stuff arises.

A blueprint takes time to develop and maintain. You can’t just post photos of products over and over and expect it to be effective.

Mechanics: Where Will You Post and How Will You Manage Activity?

Who will do the posting? Does it need to be approved? If so, how are the approvals secured?

Managing a business page is much different than posting on your personal account. It requires organization, communication and consistency.

How often will you post? Once or twice every week? Daily? This should depend on the amount of good content you have, the time you can dedicate to managing posts and the amount of information your audiences would reasonably want to see from an organization like yours.

We recommend using a spreadsheet in Google drive so multiple people can go in and add, edit and update content.  

Social media scheduling tools like Sprout Social, Buffer, CoSchedule, Feedly and others can also save time and allow for collaboration on posts.

But be sure to stay on top of your tools and avoid mistakes like the one McDonald’s made by scheduling an incomplete draft tweet. The second pair of eyes missed the ship on that one.  

Tracking & Analytics: What is Your Return on Investment?

This step is often overlooked but it should be considered carefully and consistently.

Tracking your posts’ likes, comments and shares enables you to formally assess what is working and what isn’t.

And contrary to popular belief, “likes” aren’t the most important thing. There are other impactful data to consider, such as reach, clicks and shares.

Summing It All Up

You need to research, plan, assess and repeat to have an effective social media strategy.

With changing algorithms, over-saturated news feeds and the short attention spans of social media users, managing a social media strategy for a business page requires time and energy.

By developing a strategy and asking questions, you are more likely to end up with an effective and sustainable approach. If you need an extra pair of hands, reach out to us about our social media strategy and our content calendar, which doubles as a reporting document.

After all, nobody wants to be interrupted by TV static.  

###

Kelli Hulea is a project manager at Pecchia Communications and excels at social media strategy and execution. She can be reached at kelli@pecchiacomm.com.