When posting for a business, far too often the first and only thing people consider is what to post. We are here to help you better define your social media strategy so that your business can make the most of your social media marketing efforts. 

Before posting, we suggest considering the following: 

Analyze Your Team

First and foremost, determine your team. Who will be involved in your social media marketing efforts? Who will craft content? Who will design graphics? Who has the final approval? All of these questions need to be answered to establish a smooth process. To successfully assign roles, your organization will need to do a skills assessment and discover the strengths of each individual involved. Leaders will also want to ensure thought diversity throughout the team. Building a team of people that think differently will result in better content and improved results. 

Consider the PESO Model 

We’ve shared about the PESO model in marketing, but the same concept can apply to social media specifically. We encourage our clients to think broader than posting about certain topics, and develop a strategy based on paid, earned, shared, and owned media. Here’s an overview of the PESO Model and how it can be applied to social media marketing. 

Paid: Exchanging money for distribution, whether an ad or content

• Social media ads, boosted posts, sponsored social media posts and influencer marketing are all great ways to incorporate paid media into your social strategy. 

Earned: Trading valuable content for an established authority’s audience

• This type of social media can be garnered through partnerships, public relations efforts, influencer relations, and more. The content is produced by someone else without payment. 

Shared: Amplifying content through your own audience

• Anything posted on social media is considered shared content. However, it doesn’t always have to be content you created. Shared content can be curated or user-generated as well. 

Owned: Aggregating an audience that seeks you out for content and then distributing your content to that audience

• Owned media is original content that your organization creates. We encourage you to make sure that the majority of this content is evergreen, allowing for repurposing. 

Craft User Personas 

We highly suggest that your team throws out the idea of demographics and create user personas when communicating with your audience on social media. Instead of appealing to millennials, for example, throw out generational myths and adopt the mindset that you are talking to one specific person. Crafting user personas helps you determine the characteristics of your audience. You should define your user personas’ age, occupation, personal background, professional background, and more.

Define Content Goals  

When determining content goals, marketing professionals should consider how these intentions can support the organization’s overarching goals. Sample content goals include driving brand awareness, building brand affinity and trust, increasing conversion rates, engaging employees, and sparking conversation. No matter the content goal, they should be SMART goals and support overall business goals. 

Determine Content Strategies  

Now that you’ve determined content goals, you need to choose how you will meet those goals. Your plan can (and should) include a variety of strategies. A few popular ones in the world of social media include: 

• Videos 
• Photos
• Blog posts 
• Interviews 
• Event livestreams 
• White papers
• Memes
• Infographics 
• Ads
• Microsites 
• Ebooks
• Podcasts 
• Animations 
• Storytelling 
• & more! 

Did you learn anything new from this post? Let us know in the comments!