Today, we’re going to talk about something that’s been very topical in my marketing world over the past week, and that is social media content.
I’ve had a lot of people that I’ve been talking to and just trying to give some help in regards to their social media and the one comment that I hear over and over again is, “It’s such a beast and it takes up so much time.” And this is entirely true.
Trying to come up with social media content is very time consuming, that’s why a lot of people do seek outside help to manage their social media strategy, content and scheduling.
If you are fresh in business and budget is an issue so the best option is to keep it in house at this point one way that I recommend to manage it is to set up a month’s worth of content and schedule it. With a tool that is flexible and let’s you move content around easily if required.
I understand sometimes you want to be on the fly with your content, and that’s fine because you can always shift things around, but I recommend using a scheduling tool such as Sked, Later, Hootsuite, Postfity, one of these scheduling tools. There are plenty of options out there with all different features and at all different price ranges.
The other way that I recommend creating content is to look through the assets you have, or the assets you wish to create and learn how you can re-purpose them. For example, are you doing stories, video content, blogs, podcasts etc? All of these can be repurposed into each other.
For example, and full disclosure this blog is based off a Marketing Monday originally but obviously tweaked for my readers who want to be reading this rather than tuning in to watch Marketing Monday.
The best way to get on top of your content and not let it get on top of you is to sit down, write out a months worth of content across all your channels, note where you can repurpose, what are the key programs you have going, products you are trying to push and the message you want to share – what channels and HOW are you going to do this (for example Instagram, Reels, or LinkedIn video content)
The reason I wouldn’t do more than a month at a time is in a month you can view the stats, and tweak as required. Paying close attention to your engagement, what people are sharing, what messages are resonating. Be sure to check metrics like website visits and click to calls to show the true success of your content.
Before mapping out this content ask yourself a few key questions:
What are the key points that, as a brand, you want to get across?
What is your look and feel?
What are you trying to sell?
What’s some messages that you want to deliver to your consumers?
Why do you want to be on social media?
What do your customers care about?
What are they currently viewing, where are they hanging out?
What are their biggest problems and how do you solve them? (are they even aware they have a problem!)
I personally use Canva and sometimes Photoshop to come up with my content.
Canva’s fantastic, it has changed the way people are able to come up with content, they’ve got some really cool templates, and you can make them your own, and put in your branding, put in all your colors, put in your logos, making it really simple.
But don’t get too carried away, pick a few key looks and stick with them.
Social media is a beast, you’re not wrong, but it becomes more of a beast if you’re not planned for it, and you don’t have a strategy behind why you’re in that space, and an idea around how often you want to post, what you want to post, what your messages are, how are you going to respond if someone does engage with your post and what timeframes you want to have in place around that.
Social media is very manageable if you make time to manage it. For someone that’s new to it, it could take a whole day to schedule a month.
It really depends on how clear you are with your messaging as well and how easy it is for you to gather content. And also how often you want to post. I have customers that post every day and I have customers that post twice a week.
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