We hear phrases all the time about consistency in social media, and yeah, we fully agree, you do need to be consistent with your posting, but there’s a lot more that should be going into it.
Creating content to post all over your social media platforms without purpose is how your post gets lost in the floods of other social media accounts, including your competitors. At Freshbat, we’ve moved on from simply ‘showing up’. We ‘show up’ but with a purpose behind it.
We see endless social media posts about the importance of content calendars. They are a must-have. Yes they help you post consistently but posting for the sake of posting, 7 days a week without the why behind it, leads to content fatigue, poor engagement, and often misalignment to the company goals and values. A content calendar’s job isn’t just to keep you consistent, it needs to help you align every post with your brand voice, business goals and with what your audience actually cares about, ultimately enhancing your social media presence. The impact? Well, that comes from purposeful consistency, and not just posting willy-nilly.
And don’t forget, marketing is constantly evolving so more thought needs to be put into posts than just flinging one out. You need to check in on things like the latest algorithm updates and what people are talking about currently.
A social media strategy isn’t just about hitting a certain amount of posts a week because you think that’s what you should be doing. A social media strategy is the rule book that you should follow to make sure you stay aligned with your wider marketing strategy.
Oh, by the way, if you’ve not got a marketing strategy, (the rest of this blog isn’t a sales pitch, promise), we can help you in just one day.
What does a social media marketing strategy look like?
Don’t get a marketing plan and marketing strategy mixed up. They’re both essential elements to any successful marketing strategy, but they serve very different roles. Your strategy is the why and the what, and the plan is the how and when.
What time are you posting? Who are you posting for? Have you done a social media audit? Are you keeping up with social updates and trends? Are you watching your audience’s behaviour? What’s your social presence like? Are you on the right social media platforms? Do you have your broader business objectives in mind? Are you tracking and analysing conversations that are happening around your content? What social media metrics do you want to track? Are you brainstorming new ideas for content creation regularly? Analysing tones? Looking for new hashtags? And adjusting your strategy on all the above?
So many questions, yep, we’re really making you work for it today, but you need to be answering them all properly before pressing that schedule button.
Content strategy pillars
Annnnnd, the hard work doesn’t stop there. Sorry not sorry.
Now you’ve got a rough strategy, it’s time to build the ‘what’, and we like to do this with content pillars. Creating content isn’t always the hardest part, more often, it’s figuring out what to post. See these pillars as your core themes, and everything you post should fall under one of these topics. Each pillar needs to work towards your business goals.
Always keep user-generated content in mind! It’s not just effective for B2C marketing; it can work really well for B2B too. At the end of the day, most of us would often rather see a friendly face explaining something in 30 seconds than complex graphics 100% of the time.
It’s also a great way to humanise your brand and showcase your values in a more authentic, relatable way.
Here are some examples of content pillars you could use:
Company culture
Your audience needs to get to know the team behind the business to help humanise your company. This builds trust, creates an emotional connection, and differentiates you from everyone else. So, show birthdays, team days out, behind-the-scenes content, basically the personal side of your company. And this is our personal opinion but creating content for these these types of posts is always our favourite!
Educational
Position yourself as an industry expert. Share your expertise on the latest industry trends, teach and educate your audience, post valuable articles and blogs, resolve pain points, and provide value and key takeaways in your posts.
Case studies
Show real examples of the work you’ve done, such as case studies, client stories, testimonials, interviews, whatever you’ve got (make sure it’s good of course!). The proof is in the pudding, and well, people do want proof, believe it or not. So showcase what you’ve done and for the love of God, don’t make it boring. You’re trying to be convincing here!
Thought leadership
Make your mark in the industry. Provide the latest updates, write engaging articles, and start conversations based on research and findings to show your audience that you’re the trusted source they should follow.
If anything, having these pillars makes your job a lot easier. It becomes almost a checklist to make sure you’re hitting each one and not wondering what to post.
Instead of chasing trends that don’t align with your company goals, you’re posting content that reflects your brand and resonates with your audience.
Don’t forget to also set up a consistent posting schedule, because obviously, it does matter, but like we’ve said, make sure there’s strategy behind it!
How do we use social media in the bigger picture to achieve business objectives?
It’s quite worrying when we’re talking to potential clients and we realise just how many social media specialists have no idea what their business goals are (also some can have really unrealistic expectations from what social media alone can do for them).
At the end of the day, marketing has a purpose and it’s more than just vanity metrics like ‘engagement rates’ or ‘reactions’, it’s to generate brand awareness, for PR, CSR and ultimately to gain more sales and leads. Social media tends to be the first gorgeous step that our audience will take in the sales funnel.
Social media channels are the place that your audience will make first impressions. They will have the choice of whether they’re going to find you interesting or necessary enough to follow.
If they do follow you, yay, they like something they saw, but now, you need to keep them engaged. And that’s the tricky bit. But like we said, that doesn’t mean sending out social posts daily, I mean, if your feed kept getting flooded by the same person or business every day (unless it’s super interesting and relevant, which is rare), wouldn’t you just unfollow them?
A successful social media strategy will keep you at the forefront of their mind. They’ve seen your posts for weeks, maybe months, and when the time comes around when they’re looking for someone in your industry, they should immediately think of you.
From our rant, you probably know how we feel about posting for the sake of it. It’s not a strategy, and it’s not going to get you results that are worth the time investment. Consistency matters, but it’s the alignment it has to your marketing goals that truly sets your strategy apart.
When you reflect on the wider picture, like your social media being a fundamental part of your overall strategy, building relationships with your audience, supporting your brand values and driving business growth, you’ll start to see real ROI.
So, all we ask is next time you go to schedule a post, think of us and ask yourself, will this help me achieve my goals or am I just posting for the sake of it? Make your social media efforts count by posting every single post with intention and direction.
Stop winging it and get real results with an effective marketing strategy. Get in touch for support.
