How to Build a Content Strategy for Social Media

How to Build a Content Strategy for Social Media

By Manuela Vulpescu

Whether you are new to SMM (social media marketing) or just wish to validate your priorities for this year, you may be familiar with the fact that in social media, two aspects are crucial: the quality of content you intend to promote and how people like interacting with it on each social platform in part.

Which type of content should you include in your Social Media Strategy for 2021?

Social Media Video Content

According to Hubspot, video content is great content as it will make 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2022. As a result, brands that will integrate it into their strategy may generate 49% faster revenues than those who won’t.

Live Videos

While creating Hero Content is usually an expensive process, creating Help and Hub Content can be easily managed with your smartphone. With all social media platforms being so focused on conversational aspects, no doubt that Live videos are more popular than ever. Brands use them for webinars and workshops, product launches, and live conferences. According to Restream, they actually account for 20% of all internet traffic, and they are here to stay, especially now, with many of us working remotely.

Short-form videos and stories

The short-form video gained popularity since the rise of TikTok and the launch of Instagram Reels. In the meantime, most platforms adopted the Stories format created by Snapchat.

Now you have several options to post funny and entertaining quick bites of media content that generate high engagement rates before they vanish.

Since 2017, stories' popularity has increased substantially, with 500 million people a day consuming them on Facebook and Messenger and another 500 Million watching them on Instagram. In addition, Hubspot mentions that brands with less than 10.000 Instagram followers reach more than 9% of their audiences via Stories.

Polls

You can also opt to engage your audience on Social media by creating polls. This will enable you to increase brand awareness and get valuable insights to support other efforts like product development, improvement of business processes, or client service .

Time-sensitive content

B2C businesses, in particular, embrace the idea of real-time marketing and develop content on the fly for their social media accounts.

If you decide to put social listening to work, you can also identify opportunities to step into conversations exactly when they occur and either boost your image or repair it in case of a complaint.

User-generated content

Influencer marketing and user-generated content are two types of communication around your brand that you do not entirely control.

User-generated content, in particular, becomes more and more significant. It is content developed in any possible format, including reviews created by your audience and shared on social media. Why is it so valued? Because 79% of people say, it highly impacts their buying decisions. They also say it is actually 9.8 times more impactful than influencer content.

When to post on social media

There are a lot of debates about when is the best time to post things on social channels. The problem with following trends you identify online is that the platforms' algorithms constantly change. Your audiences as well behave differently depending on their location, culture, and preferences. The best way to know when to publish your messages is by looking at your own analytics and decide what works best for the clients and prospects you’re dealing with.

How to build your social media marketing strategy

By simply posting on social media, you won’t be able to get major results. Having a strategy in place is crucial, especially if you are a small brand that does not have an entire team of social media experts at your disposal.

Here are a few steps that can get you covered.

  • Think carefully about your social media campaign objectives and buyer personas

Are you willing to increase your brand awareness, boost engagement, drive traffic to your site, generate leads and sales? Keep your buyer personas in mind, be realistic, and scale your efforts in a tangible and affordable manner.

  • Establish metrics and KPIs you want to track and measure
  • Conduct a content audit of your social media channels to understand what worked best during your previous attempts

Most things you need are already available if you know where to look for them. Dig into your analytics but keep in mind that different platforms attract different audiences. When interpreting data and deciding what to do next, remember that what worked on Facebook may not be working in the same way on Twitter or Linkedin.

  • Leverage social monitoring to find out what your competition is doing and see if you can find spots to improve your approaches.
  • Get ready to create your plan.

If you are short on resources, you may want to prioritize your social media channels because having a good presence on one or two is better than having a mediocre presence on all.

  • Build a content calendar that you can use for weeks or months ahead to help you manage easier both created and curated content.
  • Always test your content before running mass campaigns.
  • Review and refine

The more you’ll invest in knowing your audience, doing your researchers, and creating your plans, the higher the chances that your social media investments will pay off.


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