Social Monkey

The Importance Of Having A Social Media Strategy And Planned Content

Published January 18, 2012 | By Melanie

2012 is going to see social media develop and grow even more. No longer the preserve of geeks and teenagers, social media is now recognised as form of marketing that is being used readily by big corporations and small businesses to spread their messages.

Organisations can no longer just dip their toes in and ‘have a go’ at social media. To have an impact and credible presence on platforms like Facebook and Twitter they need a cohesive social media strategy and plan for content.

These are some tools you can use and things to consider when creating such a plan:

1. Review your general marketing/PR activity for the year. Is there anything that lends itself to being talked about solely, or heavily just through your social media channels e.g. participation in a recognised event, launch of a new product, partnering with other organisations?

2. Decide where you are looking to push traffic to from any activity. Your blog, your website, a bespoke website/landing page or another social media channel.

3. Use all activity as an opportunity to gain more fans/followers and tag and engage with other organisations.

4. Look up what national days/weeks are planned for the year:  http://projectbritain.com/specialdays.htm

Do any ‘fit’ with your organisations activities/products? If so plan some activity to coincide with them and then you can tag any tweets/updates and become part of the trending topic that will inevitably happen to mark the national day/week.

5. Continually monitor your feeds and trending topics to see if there is anything relevant to your organisation that you can hook into.

6. Use photos and video regularly as part of updates and encourage fans to upload photos and videos and tag you in them. In general an update with a link will encourage 37% engagement whilst and update with a video will encourage 45% engagement (source: Eloqua).

7. Consider running a competition (being careful to abide by the rules for the platform you are running it on). Even a simple competition such as giving something away when you reach, say 500 followers on Twitter can increase engagement and reach.

All activity should have the objective of raising your organisations profile, spreading key messages and engaging.

If this all seems a bit daunting you can always employ the expertise of a social media agency to help you with this stage and set you on the path to being active and engaging in the world of social media.

Posted in Blog, Social Media | Tagged Business, Content, Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing

5 comments on “The Importance Of Having A Social Media Strategy And Planned Content”

1. Cliff Peat on January 19, 2012 at 9:37 pm said:

   Thanks for the useful check list.

   What is your view of the likely relevance/importance of “owner controlled” but inexpensive social websites such as those produced using Ning or SocialGo?

   Given that they can integrate closely with the “public” media of FB and Twitter and so on, don’t “owner controlled” sites give more scope for building loyal “tribes” to whom the organisation can offer exclusive “loyalty offerings”?

   Interested in your views

   Cliff

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   • Melanie on January 20, 2012 at 12:19 pm said:

     Hi Cliff,

     There are many, many social websites and social media platforms ‘out there’ now. However, the key to the success of any of these are those who are using them. For a long time on Twitter it felt like you were just shouting into the ether, but it didn’t take long for it to become a recognised, mainstream form of communication and content sharing. Google+ is currently in a very similar postiton, but has the mite of Google and YouTube behind it..

     In answewr to your second question though, my answer is no. I believe that open source platforms (Facebook) and open content sharing feeds (Twitter) are equally as effective as building loyal fans/followers – without the indiviual at anytime having to commit to anything more than having a presence on there.

     Mel

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2. Cliff Peat on January 24, 2012 at 8:40 pm said:

   Thanks for your thoughts Melanie.

   Reply ↓
3. Kris Harris on July 16, 2012 at 8:14 am said:

   Owner controlled platforms like Ning are an excellent way to bring a community together that is in a niche of its own, where the owner wants control of how the platform is going to look, feel and engage.

   More importantly though it allows to build a list of members including email addresses to market that is targeted. The importance of Facebook and Twitter is paramount though to getting the message over, that your new Social Media platform exists.

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   • Melanie on July 16, 2012 at 1:46 pm said:

     Hi Kris,

     I can see the place that owner controlled platforms have, but I think you have to be in a postition to have a strong following or network for them to be really effective?

     I really appreciate you reminding me of the value of Forums the other day, am now looking into using them for a new client, maybe instead of (or alongside) Twitter.

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