Crafting a social content strategy

Your social media content strategy is the playbook needed to create the assets needed to succeed across your social media channels. It is the what, where, when and why of your publishing. 

Take the time to think through each of these steps in order to give your social media approach focus and direction. 

Set goals at each level of your funnel - your social media content needs to:

1. Bring in visitors to your social channels
2. Engage, entertain and/or educate them
3. Increase their intent to purchase
4. Encourage them to tell their peers about your brand

Have clear KPIs in mind for awareness, engagement, conversion and advocacy. Ensuring that your content is tailored to each objective in your funnel. 

Your social media content needs to work for your brand, as well as the algorithms. But, the primary audience is always your followers - and those followers you wish to attract. 

Start by understanding your data. Look into platform insights for demographics like age, gender and location. Then, delve into conversations on your social channels to gather information that can help you create a picture of who your target audience is and what inspires them. 

The great benefit with social media over other channels is that you have the benefit of getting first-hand feedback from your audience - both in terms of engagement and sentiment. Rather than theorising on what your audience wants, you can see the answers in the data.

Look at how past content has performed. Did a particular message, content format or creative approach work better than others? If so, double-down on that stream of content - as well as divesting those that didn't perform as well.

A good starting point for ideation is to look at what your competitors are doing - as well as brands in other categories who share your target audience. Are they doing particularly well with a specific content format? How are they using their aesthetic and tone-of-voice? Are they being reactive to what is happening in culture?

Collating insights of what is working for others is valuable in setting benchmarks for what you need to achieve in your social media content strategy. 

Social media users like to recognise what they are seeing from your brand. Content streams that are consistent in format and message will become familiar and perform better as a result - as well as being easier to manage in terms of time and resource.

Try and limit number of streams to four or five, then refresh as it becomes clear which are working harder than others in terms of winning engagement. 

It is important that you create content in formats that have the maximum impact against your social media KPIs. Think about what message each content stream needs to deliver and which format will land it best. 

Also consider how your content can be repurposed into numerous formats across channels - optimising your use of time alongside increasing exposure. 

How often to post on social media is a common debate amongst marketers. The answer depends on the channel - tweeting (X-ing?) are far more rapid than LinkedIn posts, for instance -  as well as the audience you are speaking to. 

As with everything, time and budget will be a factor. Try and not be overly-ambitious and aim to post video content daily, particularly if that has an impact on the quality and consistency of the content.

Maintaining a social media content calendar will allow you to have a top-down view of all activity across platforms and spot gaps that need to be filled. Start by plotting in your internal milestones - such as product news and promotions - alongside key cultural moments that matter to your audience.

Think about which stories are going to be hero moments for your brand, which can feature over a week/month, which are only the focus for a day? This gives you the basis to create the content needed to tell those stories.

Look into platform insights to see what times are most active for your target audience. Generally there will be a group of hours where the activity spikes and posting at the earlier of these will help to maximise your exposure. 

Also, remember to check how these vary over the week, as your audience's behaviour may differ Monday to Sunday. 

Track your data against the KPIs you have prioritised above. Be ready to refresh content that is not working for you, whilst remembering that new content streams will need time to become familiar to your followers. 

Delve into data monthly, to have enough data to draw conclusions on what is working and what needs attention.