Setting Your Social Media Strategy in 2022

 Facebook (Meta??), Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Snapchat, TikTok, LinkedIN, Pinterest. So many channels, each one with their own nuances, yet so little time. In 2022, there will be an estimated 3.96 billion users on social media (Statista Research Department, 2022). This means social is a key avenue to reach your key decision-makers that can’t be ignored.

So how does a company choose how to jump in and set a social media strategy?

Content Curation

The first question to ask yourself is- do you have the content to sustain social?

As Greenberg (2020) emphasizes “social marketing efforts need to be driven by content, not vice versa. Without content, there is not a whole lot to talk about.” So choosing the right social media strategy for your business depends on your content curation process and internal team capabilities. The amount and type of content you have may help your team choose which platforms to focus your efforts on.

First, the marketing team needs to have a full understanding of their target customers' demographics and social media platform preferences.

Figure 1. Use of online platforms, apps varies- sometimes widely-by demographic group. Outline demographics of users by social platform. By Auxier, B. & Anderson, M. (2021, April 7).

Based on the research above, a traditional B2C company targeting a younger Millenial and Gen X audience may find most success using Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram. A B2B company targeting a mixed age range with higher income users could focus on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. TikTok on the other hand doesn’t make much sense for a B2B company…at least not yet.

Using the knowledge of which platforms your target customer base mainly uses, you can then turn to the evaluation of your content. Social is more than just pushing out in-your-face messaging, it is a platform that encourages thinking of yourself as a content publisher- producing content that people want to read and engage with (Greenberg, 2009). Davis (2022) points out that “high-quality content helps to build brand reputation and trust, leading to more customers. Content helps to lure in new customers while also keeping previous customers happy.”

Content Curation Case Study

For example, Vision Technologies has a wide range of content available to the company but the content takes strong internal collaboration and time to create. Content is sourced from internal subject matter experts across the company to contribute informative blog content throughout the year, providing comments on trending relevant news articles that provide thought leadership, photographing customer projects that show before and after progress when possible, utilizing channel partner content that can be further used to showcase expertise and encourage outreach, showcasing employee experience from around the office to personalize the brand and relate customers to our people, and more. The theme that comes out in prioritizing this type of content is the use of links and videos. Therefore, the company is not on every channel. The efforts are prioritized based on the content that’s available so LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter make the most sense. Recognizing that the company still has work to do on the photographing projects front, Instagram is not yet a channel of focus. However, we know that as our company hits high growth goals and becomes an even larger company that is focusing on hiring younger, Instagram should be introduced once enough visually appealing content is built internally. Therefore, it’s important to also stress the need to be nimble and constantly re-evaluating as you fine-tune your process.

The great benefit of social is the ability to make your brand a bit more human and add personality behind a static brand (Lauby, 2009). As a company that focuses on our people and the world-class service they deliver as a differentiator in the industry, humanizing the brand is important and justifies the time spent on our chosen social media channels.

Cadence

Do you have the ability to deliver a cadence?

Other than the content itself, cadence is also important. Greenberg (2009) says “once you start with a given cadence, you’ve made a content promise. If you can’t maintain that promise, it will quickly alienate your readers.” Social media algorithms are fashioned in a way that prioritize regular use, so establishing a routine benefits your social KPI’s while also delivering on a promise to your users.

Put It In Action

Once you’ve established your content, chosen the right platforms to invest your time in, and determined a cadence you can deliver on, it’s time to put strategy into action and determine how your efforts will be measured.

As Lauby (2009) emphasizes, “Luis Ramos, CEO of The Network, reminds us that creating a social media strategy is a complex exercise because ‘it includes not only looking inside the organization to establish appropriate practices, usage policies and content parameters, but it also includes looking outside the organization to determine the proper degree of engagement.’” Internally, leaders need to understand internal employees education and comfort-level with social channels (Lauby, 2009). These internal employees can increase engagement and shares, increasing visibility, and should be on your first line of promotion. At Vision Technologies, this comes in the form of creating quick company social media trainings and documents, sending out social digests with easy sharing, reminders on the company intranet, and using employee sourced photos and news to bring them into the process.

Organization-wise, using a content calendar can also help your strategy come to life. Monday.com is my preferred platform as it’s easy to organize content within buckets and housing collateral together while integrating across platforms and tracking relevant metrics.

Figure 2. Campaigns dashboard. Examples of high level dashboards in Monday.com to organize content and boards. By Monday.com. (2022).

A Note on Content Quality to Encourage Conversation

Davis (2022) says that “when it comes to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), content is truly king.” But Novak (2010) emphasizes that “content without conversation is just broadcasting, or just advertising.” So you need to not only make sure that you are putting out regular content in order to help your SEO and visibility, but the content you are pushing needs to resonate with your audience. We want our base to like, share, click on a link to read further, or comment on our posts because we are inviting consumers into the conversation.

How do your consumers like to converse? Can you speak in a way that makes it simple for them to engage?

For example:

Figure 3. Content as conversation. Sample of complex contest versus simple user-friendly conversation. By Redish, G. (2012, May 3).

Making content easy to read, asking users to take an obvious action, putting visuals to words. These are just a few tactics to encourage conversation, not just pushing content. Therefore, social metrics become an important qualifier to track and adjust. Strategy sets the tone but metrics guide refinement and optimization. Figure out your goals, which KPI’s signal success, and how you are tracking against campaigns versus trends and then use analytics software and social listening platforms to pull it all together in measurement (Tietbohl, 2022).

Did you find this blog post valuable? Leave a comment if you agree. Leave a comment even if you don’t agree and have a different idea! I welcome your feedback and engagement.

 

References

Auxier, B. & Anderson, M. (2021, April 7). Social media use in 2021. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/04/07/social-media-use-in-2021/

Davis, D. (2022. Content is king- why you still need great content in 2022. SocialPlanner Blog. Retrieved from https://socialplanner.io/blog/content-is-king/

Greenberg, M. (2009, October 20). Content is king of social marketing. Multi Channel Merchant. Retrieved from https://multichannelmerchant.com/marketing/content-is-king-of-social-marketing/

Lauby, S. (2009, December 28). How to: implement a social media business strategy. Mashable. Retrieved from https://mashable.com/archive/social-media-business-strategy

Monday.com (2022). Homepage. Campaign Dashboard. Retrieved February 7, 2022 from Monday.com

Redish, G. (2012, May 3). Content as conversation. UX Magazine. Retrieved from https://uxmag.com/articles/content-as-conversation

Statista Research Department. (2022, January 28). Most popular social networks worldwide as of October 2021, ranked by number of active users. Statista. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/

Tietbohl, M. (2022, February). Week 4 lesson: social media analytics & advertising channels. Ecampus. Retrieved from West Virginia University, IMC 642