The world of social media and online marketing is similar to cooking a meal with a recipe. If you prepare the ingredients (aka your content), and follow the recipe (aka your posting strategy), then it's more likely that you'll create a delicious meal that your audience (aka the people watching) will enjoy, even savor! If you don't prepare your ingredients or follow your recipe, you'll probably still be able to prepare a meal, but there's a higher chance that your audience may not like it as much as if you'd stuck to a recipe.
So let's delve straight in...
Your Social Media Schedule:
One of the most important elements of your online presence as a business or individual is that you develop trust with your audience through it. One of the ways that you can do this is to be predictable, in the right ways. Not only does this mean being predictable with the type of posts, and aesthetics of the content that you produce, but also with your posting schedule.
The main point to bear in mind is consistency. Basically, consistency develops trust. So if this means that you decide to post once every week, then pick a day and time to do this, and stick to it. If it means that you're posting 10 times each day, then make sure that you post 10 times each day, and stick to it! A word of advice here: rather formulate a social media schedule that starts out SLOWLY. Posting 2-3 times each week is manageable if you're new to this, and then you can always increase this to 3-4 times per week as you start to get the hang of it. What you want to avoid is being unrealistic. You don't want to start out by posting 20 pieces of content immediately, each day, and then one week later realise that it's unsustainable and fizzle out. For your audience to grow consistently, you need to be putting out content consistently.
How do I do this?
1. Your Content Calendar
You want to set up a content calendar. Basically, this becomes a plan of what you're going to post, and when you're going to post it for a certain period of time. A good way to start out is to categorize a couple of themes that define your brand/business and dedicate a certain amount of posts to each theme. The amount and types of posts per theme can be adjusted as you see what your audience is most responsive to as you go along, so make sure that you're keeping an eye on their feedback in the form of likes, comments, and shares.
2. Responsibilities And Roles
Now that you've got an idea of how often you'll post, and what you want to post, make sure that you outline who exactly is going to be responsible for posting it! If you're working with an agency, then make sure you know who your go-to person is, and how to contact them. If there's someone within your company that you're giving access to your social media accounts to post on your behalf, make sure that they are aware of how often and what they need to be posting and when. But if you're alone, you won't need to worry about this too much.
3. Set yourself some SMART Goals for your marketing
Remember that for all of your online marketing, especially your content marketing plan, you need to know:
Specifics: What specifically am I wanting to put out there? Who, specifically, is my target audience? When specifically will I be posting my content, and on what platforms? How many followers am I aiming to reach and by when?
Measures: How am I going to measure the results of my posts?
Attainable: Are my social media marketing targets attainable, or do I need to reassess my goals?
Realistic:
Is what I am posting relevant? Am I able to keep up the posting schedule that I've set myself? Have I checked the resources, if I'm using any? Is what I am aiming for reasonable to achieve, and results-based?
Time-Frame: Have I set up a specific time-frame in which I can achieve my social media marketing goals? Is it realistic? Will having a half-way check-in be beneficial?
If you're feeling stuck or need help with anything mentioned in this article, drop us an email at marketing@2fellasmedia.com and we'll be sure to help you out! Good luck!