Writing a social media strategy

A key part of any good social media presence is creating a branded tone of voice that connects with your audience. The companies that use it most successfully have already planted the seed with their customers and prospects that they are experts, can be trusted and are suitable for whatever service or product they are selling.

To get the most out of your social media efforts you should make sure that you can answer the following:

• What does success look like for you? (customer care, leads, other)

• Which channels are right for you? (in most cases for a B2B client I would suggest that LinkedIn and Twitter would be more effective than Instagram for instance)

• Why would Joe Bloggs follow you (crucial. If you’re simply posting about which tie you’re going to wear that day, the chances are your engagement levels aren’t going to skyrocket)

Kicking off your strategy should involve a good session of SMART goal setting. A common answer from this would be “I want 1k likes by Christmas.” This is fine, but does it fit in with the rest of your plan? Would a more effective target be “I want to have 500 people download and use my exclusive Facebook coupon before the end of March.” It completely depends upon your business and your marketing strategy but have a think.

Once you’ve done that you need to think about where your prospects like to socialise. The easiest way to do this is to ask your customers where they participate online. There are also a number of tools out there to help you collate these details. Followerwonk can give you some of this information for free but there is no substitute for your own quantitive research.

Finally, what are you going to post about? Facebook are going to begin cracking down on overly promotional posts, so take care not to spam your followers as you will be penalised for this. Take a look at what your competitors are sharing as well as what your customers/ prospects are sharing. For B2B we would always advise positioning yourself as a thought leader by sharing relevant news to the industry (don’t be afraid to share your competitors’ material if it’s particularly relevant). There are a number of tools available for free to monitor this activity, but it’s not a quick process. There is no substitution for your own insights, people want to follow individuals not corporate statements.

If you have internal resource and you’re not already doing so, ensure that social media is a key part of your marketing mix. If not, Cobb Digital can manage the whole process for you.

Call us on 01273 208 913 for more information and a free audit.