Brands are increasingly leaning on social media as a key element of their content marketing strategies. Social media allows for anyone, from educators, to economists, to small businesses, to reach audiences they may never have been able to find in person. Each social media platform comes with its own set of rules and conventions, but a commonality between most is the need for brevity. Whether it’s a short time-frame for video content, or a character limit for text, social media rewards those who can make succinct yet captivating content.
As your team implements your social media strategy, follow these five guidelines to translate ideas into social media successes.
- Understand what your messaging is meant to convey and what your social media goals are. Knowing your desired results and clearly communicating your call-to-action will make analyzing your social media strategy’s effectiveness much easier. This approach will also ensure that clear, well-defined ideas are the backbone of your content.
- Utilize visuals, sounds, and any other platform-specific tools to engage with audiences’ senses while delivering easy-to-digest messages. Your social media team should be familiar with common practices across platforms, and if not, you should take the time to analyze what other creators in your industry are doing online. Researching trends and the competition gives valuable insights into what is resonating with your target audience.
- Making potentially layered ideas more approachable with simple, relatable language, personality, and tone, invites viewers to check out more of what you have to offer. Using hashtags and trends is a great way to get noticed and have your content circulate to more potential audience members. But, as many users scroll and skim through their feeds, approachability and brevity will help hold their attention and pique their interest.
- Ideas that may work for longer pieces (like a blog post) may not translate well into shorter formats, or may require serialization (like a thread on Twitter). Be cognizant of the best way to share information and ideas when brainstorming to make sure every post is optimized for the chosen platform. Knowing who you are trying to reach will help with this, too, as certain demographics will be more active on certain platforms.
- Monitor your performance and be open to feedback as you explore the best delivery systems for your ideas. Use your pre-defined goals to measure your success, and don’t be afraid to try different approaches and see what works best.