Welcome to another edition of Salty’s Social Media Vocabulary. Over the past two weeks we talked about customer journey maps and how they can help grow your business and improve your customer’s experience. In the example map, many customer points of contact happen by way of social media. As such, this week we’re discussing another major component of marketing and customer care: social media strategy. Let’s get familiar with the basic components of a sound social media strategy.
- Strategy: refers to the overall tactics used to achieve your business goals. Setting a strategy starts by identifying your social media goals: are you raising awareness for a cause? Soliciting investors? Selling a product? Your goals will help you answer further clarifying questions, such as what types of content you’ll post, the frequency of posts, your target audience, if you’ll rely on paid posts vs organic posts, and so on.
- Content: is anything you post online, including videos, photos, retweets, shared links, blog posts, and text. Certain types of content are best suited for different purposes, and your overall content strategy should take these advantages into consideration.
- Audience: is the intended demographic(s) for your products or services, and by extension your social media content.
- Cadence: is the baseline posting schedule for your content. A strong posting cadence is informed by engagement analytics, something that Salty Waffle’s Social Automation tool tracks across all social media channels.
- Brand Voice: is usually something that extends beyond social media. Because of the frequency with which most brands post on social, your social media brand voice is an extension of that broader voice, making it important to have a consistent brand voice across your social media channels.
Unlike traditional media, social media is a means through which brands can communicate and converse directly with their audience. As such social media has become the frontier for brand advertising, making it critical to have a solid, informed strategy. Need help with that? At Salty Waffle we specialize in content, strategy, and improving your customer experience. Just saying.
What’s your experience with social media content strategy? What would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments! We’ll see you next week for more social media vocabulary.