Here’s why you should prioritise your social media strategy
Social media is a strange concept in marketing: it’s often something that is criticised when going ‘badly’ but ignored when succeeding. Social media managers also fall into this bracket. Often multitasking masters, social media managers are either bundled into another job role or expected to undertake tasks that broadly do not fit the job description of a social media manager, such as updating a website or Photoshopping graphics suitable for the brand.
This has a huge knock-on effect for a business – they may think they’re cost cutting, but they’re creativity cutting.
It forces social media managers to deviate away from their expertise, instead becoming an almost jack of all trades. Consequently, social media content takes a backseat and is just another cog in the machine.
Businesses don’t realise just how important it is to dedicate time to developing and rolling out a social media strategy and calendar, and social media managers have heard it all when it comes to c-suite inputs.
"It frightens me how many people are still battling social each and every month, spending their valuable business revenue-generating time creating content when it's just not their skillset,” says Chris Reeve, founder of Reeve Social Media.
What this means is that strategies are made on the fly, with no forward planning or preparation. There’s no consistency across posts or branding, and no room to identify opportunities for revenue generation. Products will get promotions based on what is requested at the time, as opposed to an equal share or weighted upon ROI or timely opportunities.
Going ad-hoc occasionally is fine to jump on trends, but it’s not a long-term strategy of a successful business. It’s easy to forget about posting content, especially if being made to multi-task, and so days could pass without any posts at all if there’s no strategy or schedule in place.
It’s important to plan to cover every topic that can generate interest for your brand and allows for changes to be made and mistakes to be spotted. A prime example of this is building a strategy around a sporting event. It can be the perfect mix of reactive and proactive content: the dates are often definitive and so you can build content around that, whilst also taking the opportunity to post during the event if there’s a talking point or you spot an opportunity.
Having a strategy and brand guidelines in place allows posts to go out at a moment’s notice that fits the brand and voice that the company wants to portray. It also helps gives peace of mind – something the hectic world of social media usually doesn’t allow for.
It also helps identify opportunities and pitfalls of your current social media output: “If you’re not seeing any meaningful return on social media, it’s worth looking at what you’re doing and asking some questions about it,” comments Chris.
“For example, do you have any KPIs in place? Are we utilising paid ads as well as organic? Does our audience want to see this content – is it tailored to them? Is our creative enough to stop someone scrolling through their feed to pay attention to it?
“Ultimately, your audience should decide what you post. Stop posting the content that isn’t being engaged with – to find out what works, you could try A/B testing, so swapping out creative and copy but keeping the message along the same lines to identify what generates engagement and what doesn’t.”
So, what do companies do who have a handle on how important social is, but don’t have the in-house resource to carry out what they want? They find an agency.
“Working with a skilled and trusted supplier can be beneficial in the long run. They have the experience and knowledge to carry out campaigns and enact a strategy, so you won’t go wrong outsourcing your social media.
“As long as you set clear goals and expectations with the agency, you can end up making more revenue and getting your time back to work on more revenue generating activity.
“The question is: how much is your time worth?”