In 5 Steps to Creating Your Social Media Strategy – Part 1, we explored the first two steps to get you started: reviewing your current status and having a plan. Part 2 will dive into the final 3 steps which focus on managing your campaign, maintaining it, and reviewing your analytics. Whether you are just getting started or looking to improve your current standing, this blog will help you expand your reach and optimize your overall social media strategy.
- Manage Your Campaign
What do you know about managing your social media campaign? For many people, this piece of the strategy can be overwhelming and difficult to organize. That is where tools and calendars come into play. In order to manage an effective social media campaign, you must be organized. This means keeping track of the past, managing the present, and planning for the future.
Scheduling your posts will help you plan out the week and prepare for nights and weekends. This will ensure that you don’t miss a day and will help those larger social media teams collaborate with one another.
Here are a few tools you can look into to help with scheduling:- HootSuite (free or paid)
- SproutSocial (paid)
- Facebook Scheduling (free from your company page)
- You will also want to create an editorial calendar using Excel or Google Docs to help plan out your week and keep track of previous posts. Each week, I sit down and outline my posting plan for the next 7 days. This helps ensure that all of our blogs, news releases, videos, etc. get shared and that no day is overlooked. I also like to record the time of day that the post went out and the engagement it received. With my editorial calendar, I am able to look back one year and see what has changed since that time.
- Maintain Your Campaign
Maintaining your campaign involves responding to comments and messages, preparing for a social crisis, and staying up to date on the industry so that you can adapt your strategy accordingly.
- Responding to comments
As a general rule, you will want to respond to all comments and messages. At the very least, you should recognize positive comments with a “like” or “favorite”. You will also want to respond within a short amount of time, preferably less than 2 hours (but this is different for each company). - Staying in the know
Social media is constantly changing so it is important to know when these changes occur. Some great sites to reference include Social Media Today, Social Media Examiner, and Mashable. We also work hard to keep you in the know with our regular blog posts, newsletter, and social media updates. - Managing a social crisis
- As much as we hate to be the bearer of bad news, social crises are bound to occur for many of us. It is important to have a plan in place ahead of time in case one does arise. This means working with your management and PR team to determine the best course of action. You should always address the issues online first then request that they contact you offline. Also, deleting comments should be a last resort
- Responding to comments
- Review Your Analytics
Reviewing your analytics is one of the most important steps in creating your social media strategy. Without analytics, all of your social media efforts are futile. This is also a step that is ongoing and will affect the way you approach the previous 4 steps over time.
A few analytic tools to help you track changes over time include:- Google Analytics (free)
- Facebook Insights (free on your company page)
- HootSuite (free or paid)
- When reviewing your analytics, remember that it is not all about having the most followers. After all, what are 10,000 followers worth if they aren’t going to become customers? The key metrics you want to focus on are the ones pertaining to engagement. Engagement on social platforms is a better indicator of success and will help your posts go viral, reaching new people.
The final 3 steps of developing your social media strategy are focused more heavily on conducting your social media campaign over time. If you missed part 1, you can read it here to learn about the first 2 steps to getting started.
As always, if you need any assistance with social media management, feel free to contact Informatics.
photo credit: mkhmarketing via flickr cc
