Learning the Ropes: Social Media Management
Today’s deep dive is into Social Media Management, where you’ll learn how to audit your social media accounts, create a community with your audience, set goals for your business, and track growth.
Find Your Base
The first step is to audit your business’s social media accounts and their baseline engagement and followers. All social media accounts (from LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, etc.) should have the same name and post approximately the same content to avoid confusion. From there, find your ideal client, and target them specifically. Algorithms are notoriously tricky and are constantly in flux, so it’s not a guarantee your audience will find you—you have to find them. Decide precisely who you are trying to reach, and tailor-make your content to align with that person. Specificity is the name of the game, and broad appeal might garner a larger following, but that doesn’t mean it translates to more business.
Cohesive Vision
The most important thing to start with is creating consistency in your brand. Social media presence is another great way to build trust with your clientele, and a cohesive vision across platforms in colors, fonts, and topics is the first step in communicating that. Creating a style guide in your design platform, in either Adobe InDesign or Canva, with consistent messaging and tone with ensure no matter who is posting the content, your audience knows what to expect.
Plan in Advance
Plan your posts to find rhythm and predictability within your content. Decide what you will post and when (we recommend about a month in advance), and schedule posts on an editorial calendar at pre-established times. At The Productive Co., we brainstorm and create an editorial calendar on Asana, design the posts on Canva, and send them back through Asana for approval. Then, we schedule our posts on Buffer with pre-assigned “posting block” times. Not only does this keep your posting process tidier, but it also helps track which types of content and messaging do best for each platform. Additionally, this multi-step process ensures multiple eyes are on any given post, leaving less room for error.
Find New Angles
Short-form content and stories have surged in popularity in recent years thanks to TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Video content, however, takes more work and is challenging to plan due to micro trends and sounds. That being said, video content is a great way to find new audiences and significantly influences the algorithm. A mix of pre-established, planned content and more spontaneous posts is a way to ride the wave of fresh engagement while maintaining consistency for your followers. And keep in mind that the goal most likely isn’t solely engagement—most likely, you’re trying to redirect followers to a link or a product. Strategically deploy polls, questions, and website links to get your audience off the platform and engage with your brand outside it.
Social media platforms are constantly adapting and changing, as should Social Media Management! It’s a complex, ever-evolving topic, and we’ve only scratched the surface. Social Media Management is one of many services our boutique Virtual Assistant packages provide. Book a free 30-minute consultation to learn more and turn your vision into action.
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