6 killer questions that will rock your social strategy

Marc Fabregas-Perez

Posted by Marc Fabregas-Perez on 21 Jul 2016 reading time

  • The importance of social

    In our experience, companies fail to adopt a winning social strategy for 2 reasons.

    • A lack of understanding of what social can deliver (when done right) causes many to give up before they begin
    • Poor execution causes less than desirable results

    Issues like these cause many to doubt whether social will work for them. Let’s take a look at the 6 questions you should ask yourself before kick-starting your social campaign.

  • Who am I posting to?
    Who am I posting to?

    Trying to find the right audience to share your message with can be a difficult task. But, when you take into account who you’re posting too, a lot of other things line up including what to message about and the tone of voice you should use.

    Fortunately, many of the social networks provide you with opportunities to filter your posts to the right area and demographic (often more options are available for paid/advertised messages). So treat social like any other marketing/sales exercise and be specific about who you’d like to connect with!

  • What am I posting about?
    What am I posting about?

    Leading on from the above, finding the right message for your audience is essential. Consider grouping your social posts into one of the following categories:

    • Generic information posts that keep people apprised of updates and events
    • Interest piquers that build an understanding or sympathise with a problem
    • Engagement posts typically used to present a solution to a problem
    • Promotional posts that boost the profile of your own brand

    At Debunc we go one step further and cross-classify these post types with wider industry news (all of marketing), industry specific posts (digital led) and company specific posts (those about Debunc or pointing to Debunc content).

    This will allow you to get a good mix of your own content and sharing other relevant info to position you as a thought leader.

  • Where am I posting from?
    Where am I posting from?

    Even within your sphere of influence, there are different ways that potential customers would prefer to engage.

    Take the time to really understand what each social network can do for you. Do your customers prefer the quick-witted and immediate nature of Twitter? Are visuals important and would Pinterest serve as the perfect social hub? Is a more professional outlook required as found on LinkedIn? Based on your unique offering, you’ll need to test and adjust what works best for you.

    Truth be told – you’ll more than likely find that some mix of the above is required to get optimal engagement from your social activity.

  • When will I be posting?
    When will I be posting?

    Getting the right time for your message can be just as important as what you’re sending. Catching a normally engaged user at the wrong time can be disastrous and effect your overall metrics.

    The AdWeek content piece on social times would suggest mid week between 1pm and 3pm as a sweet spot for Facebook, whereas Wednesdays and weekends are perfect for B2C Twitter campaigns. LinkedIn posting is preferable between Tuesday – Thursday (probably because of the typical working week) and yet Monday’s show the highest engagement for Instagram followers.

    Needless to say, you should look at the analytics of your own social schedule to see what has been effective for your business and replicate any clear successes.

    You can check out the full AdWeek infographic here.

  • Why am I posting?
    Why am I posting?

    It can’t be overlooked. All too often we hear from clients and prospects alike that they are either unsure or unconvinced about how social can work for them.

    Be under no illusion – like any other form of marketing, social takes time and effort. Yet, when done right, social serves as an integral part of any good business’ content strategy. It offers a route of content distribution that is further reaching than any list you can purchase. More importantly, if you are connecting with users in the right way, you’ll have a new group of ambassadors ready to share valuable information within their own circles.

    Engaging your sales/business development team with your social strategy is also a great way of listening to what your prospect’s pain points and proactively working to build workable solutions around it.

  • How will I manage my social schedule?
    How will I manage my social schedule?

    So, you’ve got the 5 w’s covered. The last step (and arguably the most important) is how you will manage your social schedule.

    There are  a number of tools on the market to help with this, some offering rich integrations with social channels, and oteh.

    Two stand-out candidates for us (and used quite heavily at Debunc) are CoSchedule and HootSuite. You can find out more about why we love them below.

    • CoSchedule
      CoSchedule

      Produced by the team at TodayMade, CoSchedule is a great all round tool for content ideation, creation and distributions. It’s tie-in with WordPress + gUI make it great for making sure every piece of content we produce is shared with our community of followers across every social network. It offers adaptive timing to send messages based on when users are most engaged too!

    • Hootsuite
      Hootsuite

      Probably recognised by most as the industry leading social media management tool, Hootsuite offers the ability to schedule and bulk publish posts as well as strong monitoring options to know how best to engage with your social followers. At Debunc, we use Hootsuite extensively to manage the majority of social content that sits outside of gUI, as well as garnering social analytics info.

  • Start your social journey

    We hope you’ve enjoyed this article. Plus, if you haven’t already, then now is the time to take the step with a solid social strategy.

    With the right mix, you’ll be able to engage with your audience in an authentic, proactive and meaningful way across each channel they show an interest in.

    Want to discuss your social requirements with a kick-ass agency who look to make a difference with digital? Our team would love to talk!

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Posted by Marc Fabregas-Perez
Marc Fabregas-Perez

Marc is our digital marketing manager here at Debunc. With a wealth of experience working on social campaigns, SEO + PPC, he is an expert at boosting brand awareness. In his downtime, you might catch Marc on the ski slopes or playing tennis.

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