CONTENT PLANNING FOR SOCIAL MEDIA
So you've got a business social media account – now what?
In today’s world, content is king. There is a great demand for new and exciting content that keeps the business “relevant” and engages the audience. There is a common expectation among businesses that they must create and spread content in order to gain customers and boost sales, but not everyone capitalizes on the opportunities that social media provide.
Social media accounts give companies the opportunity to interact and form a professional relationship with their potential customers and reach a wider audience outside of their current followers.
There are a lot of social media accounts that do not take advantage of social media’s full potential or do not use them correctly.
For example, inconsistent branding (such as the company’s voice or choice of graphics or content) or infrequently posting damages the company’s reputation by having a confusing brand identity and a disinterested audience. Additionally, businesses do not often utilize a content planner, and this results in incoherent content and risks creating an increasingly unengaged audience.
For the time being, let’s focus on content planning. Content planning saves time, reduces stress, and ensures that you aren’t scrambling to create a post at the last minute. Planning ahead also gives you the opportunity to put some real thought into what it is you want to share with your audience and all of the potential customers that are a part of that group. Providing varied content means that you have fresh content that keeps your audience interested in your brand.
Find your voice
he type of content that you post will depend on the type of business or brand that you are representing, what kind of relationship you want to have with your customers and the level of professionalism that you need to show in order to maintain that brand identity and relationship.
This is referred to as your brand voice; your brand’s unique personality that comes out in the way that you communicate with your audience and customers over social media (although it should be the same in person, too). Everything that you write – Facebook posts, Instagram captions, the language that you use during webinars and live videos, etc. – will be represented by that personality.
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Before you begin planning your content, decide on your business’s personality by thinking about which characteristics you want to showcase and which ones best serve your audience and attract the type of people that you want to interact with. You can do this by writing down:
Your catchphrases
Your most commonly used introductions and sign off’s
Your core values
Your message
Your target audience (not sure who that is? Check out this article on finding your dream customer)
How you want your business to be viewed
What should you post?
Make it fun: add some personality to your content; incorporating humour can increase the number of times your audience engages with your posts, pictures, statuses and tweets.
Motivational Monday
Wisdom Wednesday
Memes
Funny photos
Funny quotes
Inspiring story
Behind-the-scenes
National or international holidays
National or international days relevant to your business (such as National Entrepreneur Day)
Engage: show your audience that there is someone standing behind your company willing to interact with its customers.
Out of office
Try it Tuesdays
Ask your audience a question
Answer a question
Create a poll
Webinar or Facebook live
Host a contest
Customer testimonial
Educate: one of the keys to building an interested audience and gaining new customers is education.
Depending on your company and the product or service that it offers, your audience may need to learn more about who you are and what it is you offer.
Details about one of your products or services
Sneak peek
Relevant information about your industry
Promote: as in, quite literally promote it. Get your business in front of your customers by posting on social media, writing to your email subscribers (if you have them), and offering incentives to get people to consider (and, hopefully, purchase) your products and services.
Depending on what your customers' pain points and purchasing thresholds are, you might want to consider implementing giveaways and other contests to get potential customers and fans to try out what you offer.
Create a plan
This is probably a pretty obvious section of this article, given that 'plan' is a part of the title, but I feel the need to reiterate it. Many entrepreneurs fail to outline, plan, and schedule their content and end up with either hastily-written content (which risks spelling errors or incorrect or incomplete information) posted in the middle of the night (yes, your public can tell that you posted that question to Facebook at 1 a.m.... do you think that might be viewed as an example of unpreparedness and sleepless nights?).
At the beginning of every month, sit down and plan out your content. It is best if you have a detailed list or current calendar or planner that you can use to visualize and write down the content that you will be sharing. Use your planner to:
Create monthly goals
Determine what you will share
Colour code each type of content (such as videos, photos, text, etc.)
Gather and create content
Track posts, promotions, and traffic to your website
Work on your posts ahead of time by:
Keep everything in one place
Use a binder to keep all of your content ideas in one place and use the same planner or template every time. A content planner can also include the number of followers or subscribers that you have at the beginning and the end of any given month, and the traffic that was generated from your posts; this type of information will give you a better idea of where most of your traffic comes from, and what type of content works and what doesn’t.
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