Tag Archive for: social media strategy

What Makes An Idea Social Media Strategy?

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Navigating the ever-evolving landscape of social media can be a daunting task for businesses, and crafting an effective social media strategy is way more than just posting content; it’s about creating a dynamic plan that resonates with your audience and drives meaningful engagement.

If you’re a business seeking to strengthen your social media presence, navigating the vast landscape of platforms and trends (hello TikTok and Reels!) might seem like a daunting task. So, we’ve pulled together our top 10 tips that makes an ideal social media strategy. And to find out more about how we can support with your social, pop the team a message.

1. Understanding Your Audience

A successful social media strategy begins with a deep understanding of your target audience. Who are they? What do they care about?

Tailor your content to meet their needs, interests, and pain points. Knowing your audience allows you to tailor content that not only attracts attention but fosters a genuine connection.

How do you do this? Conduct surveys, analyse social media insights, and actively listen to the conversations happening in your industry. By aligning your strategy with your audience, you create a connection that goes beyond just marketing.

 

2. Have Clear Objectives

 You’ll want to define your social media objectives clearly, ensuring they align with your overall business goals. Are you aiming to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, or gain a larger following?

Establishing specific and measurable objectives helps you track your progress and adjust your strategy as needed. Remember, the more precise your goals, the easier it is to determine the success of your social media efforts at the end!

 

3. Consistent Brand Voice

 Maintaining a consistent brand voice across all platforms is the bedrock of successful social media communication. Whether your tone is professional, witty, or informative – ensure it aligns seamlessly with your brand identity. Brands like Innocent and Ryanair are a great example of this. Consistency builds brand recognition and fosters trust among your audience. It’s not just about what you say, it’s about how you say it across every interaction you have.

 

4. Content Variety

 The ideal social media strategy won’t advise a copy and paste job every week. Diversify your content to keep your audience engaged and interested. Share a mix of static regular content, written content, and reels/videos. Instagram Reels have become a major player in the social media scene lately, catching our keen eye as a noteworthy trend. So, we highly recommend kicking off your social media journey right there!

Business content and behind-the-scenes glimpses add a human touch to a brand. The digital landscape is dynamic, and so should be your content. Embrace trends, experiment with formats, and always keep an eye on what resonates most with your audience. Have fun with it – and things may just perfectly fall into place.

 

5. Strategic Posting Schedule

 Timing is crucial in social media. Analyse when your audience is most active on each platform and schedule your posts accordingly. Consistency is key, so establish a posting schedule that aligns with your audience’s habits.

Use scheduling tools to plan your content in advance, allowing you to maintain a steady flow of posts without being tied to your screen.

At Source, we use software for our clients to guarantee the consistent delivery of their social media posts, precisely at the times when their audience is most engaged. It works really well and we’d absolutely suggest including this to craft the ideal social media strategy.

 

6. Engagement and Community Building

An effective social media strategy goes beyond broadcasting messages; it involves active engagement. Respond to comments, messages, and mentions promptly. Foster a sense of community by encouraging discussions and user-generated content. Acknowledge your audience’s input, showcase user testimonials, and make them feel like valued contributors to your brand. A thriving community not only enhances brand loyalty but also extends your organic reach.

 

7. Utilise Analytics

Regularly analyse social media analytics to track your performance. This can help you identify what’s working well and areas that need improvement. Analytics provide valuable insights into audience behaviour, content performance, and platform effectiveness. By using this data, you can refine your approach and maximize the impact of your social media efforts.

 

8. Embrace Adaptability

In the dynamic world of social media, trends and features pop up regularly, shaping the landscape swiftly.

Keep your finger on the pulse of trends, algorithm shifts, and emerging platforms. Ready yourself to adjust your strategy, embracing fresh opportunities and tackling challenges in the ever-evolving digital terrain. Flexibility is your secret weapon; so be willing to experiment with new formats, platforms, and engagement techniques.

 

9. Incorporating Visual Appeal

Visuals are powerful in capturing your audience’s attention. If you want to promote your business as high quality, investing in high-quality images and graphics will reflect your brand aesthetic.

Eye-catching visuals can significantly enhance the impact of your social media content, so experiment with different types of visuals, from infographics to behind-the-scenes snapshots. Consistency in visual style contributes to brand recognition, making your content instantly identifiable in a crowded feed.

At the same time though, while beautiful photography portrays your brand well, we’ve also found that some of our best performing Reels and TikToks are just filmed on an iPhone. Users like authenticity as much as they enjoy beautiful aesthetics.

 

10. Strategic Partnerships

Finally, consider collaborations and partnerships with influencers or other brands in your industry.

This can extend your reach and introduce your brand to new audiences. Authentic partnerships resonate well with audiences and can lead to mutual benefits. Choose partners whose values align with yours, ensuring a seamless integration that feels organic to both your brand and theirs.

This is another arm of what we do here at Source PR. We find that strategic partnerships can really enhance your overall following and engagement – so we offer these collaborations to many of our clients and have been able to build great relationships with local influencers too.

 

 

As a business, its pivotal to recognise that the ever-evolving landscape of social media demands a strategic and adaptive approach. Navigating through trends, engaging with dynamic content, and fostering connections with your audience are integral components of a successful digital presence.

 

Within our agency one of our most popular services is seamlessly handling your social media, tailoring strategies that align with you and your business goals. If you are interested in finding out more on how we can help with your social strategy, drop us a message.

Is There More To Social Media Marketing Than Going ‘Viral’?

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Often, the brief to social media managers is “make me go viral”. For businesses, it certainly does seem attractive, tweets with thousands of likes or TikTok videos hitting a million views. Going viral has its perks of course, but there is so much more to social media than this. Today, we wanted to discuss the importance of a steady social media strategy and why interactions aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Why Virality Might Not Be ‘All That’

For many, the holy grail for Twitter users is virality. Did you know the most engaged with tweet ever was in January 2019, and was by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa who tweeted offering £725,000 to 100 people who shared the tweet? It racked up 4.68 million retweets. The tweet was made to celebrate his fashion website Zozotown making 10bn yen over the Christmas and New Year period. However, for most this was simply an afterthought. The reason for engaging, for the most part, was to be in with a chance of winning that very attractive prize. Herein lies the issue with social media virality, and why it may be hollower than it seems.

Many brands want virality, but for what reason? In most cases, it can be seen as no more than a vanity metric. Competitions, for example, can be a great way of raising followers for a business, but unless your prize is focused towards your target audience, the likelihood is that most of those interactions will slowly begin to drop off. Oftentimes, the tweets that go viral aren’t strictly related to a brand and therefore are generating the wrong kind of engagement, or garner superficial interactions that actually will end up having very little impact on the brand, once you overlook the numbers.

For example, it’s become a growing trend for fashion retailers to post about memes, TV shows, even food. These posts tend to get plenty of shares, likes, tags, comments and so on. However, they often don’t relate to the brand itself and therefore the engagements are with the content itself, not the business who posted it. The numbers are great, but they tend not to be indicative of brand support, but rather how many people actually were interested in the content posted. If that content does not support your brand in any way, then is there anything to be gained from this?

For us, it’ll always be engagement with intent > interactions.

Are Interactions All They’re Cracked Up To Be?

Likes, shares, comments etc. are always reported on, but how important are they?

These interactions show that a user has not only just glanced at your content, but paused to read it, engage with it, and perhaps even share it with others.

But does the absence of them mean your social media content has not been successful? No.

Plenty of interested stakeholders can still engage with your tweet, without clicking that ‘like’ button. There is often more value in link clicks from genuinely interested parties and general exposure of your brand, than there is in getting a tweet with 100 meaningless likes. This is something we bear in mind when completing social media audits and strategies – we focus on content that appeals to the right demographic, and that helps build a better brand with an engaged audience.

To summarise, interactions are great, but there’s no need for concern should they not be there either, so long as you’re building a great social media profile and communicating to the right people.

The Importance Of Consistent Communications

With 45 million active social media users in the UK alone, having an airtight strategy is important. We believe it’s time to focus on meaningful interactions as opposed to the aim of going viral, as the latter is only likely to return short term success. There is far more value in an ongoing strategy that consistently delivers.

We recently published a case study on our work with client Combermere Abbey. Through consistent communications, even throughout the pandemic whilst the venue was closed, the business was able to reap some pretty impressive results upon reopening. This is thanks in no small part to an ongoing strategy that focused on consistent brand messaging, as opposed to chasing short-term wins.

Going ‘viral’ is certainly exciting, and we don’t complain when it happens. But we believe that consistently good performing social media content, that doesn’t focus on individual metrics, is important because:

  • It helps to build a reputable and well-known brand
  • It establishes your tone of voice and market position
  • It subtly markets to your consumers, time after time
  • It focuses on relevant content that meets your goals, be it exposure or conversions
  • It produces content that people engage with beyond a simple ‘like’
  • It puts you ahead of your competitors that are chasing viral posts without substance

We love a good social media result in any form, but we think there’s a lot of underrated beauty in an ongoing strategy that ticks over and consistently does favours for your brand and your business.

To find out more about The Source and how we utilise social media channels for our clients, please get in touch. We’re based in Cheshire but operate nationwide.

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT DOING A SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIT

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There’s been an exponential rise in businesses using social media platforms to excite, entice and engage with audiences as more and more consumers turn to social media during the recent lockdowns.  To maximise performance and ensure you are on brand and have a strong message, now is the right time for companies to undertake a social media audit.

Research suggests that just under half of consumers (43%) said they were spending longer on social media because of the outbreak, and 19% say they’ll carry on spending longer on social media once restrictions lift. There has never been a better time to audit your social media than now.

The Basics Of A Social Media Audit

The good news is that a social media audit for businesses is not as painful as it sounds when left in the hands of professionals.  It’s a very worthwhile exercise to ensure brands are making the most of their opportunities, reflecting best practice and also keeping pace with the evolving social media trends and algorithms.

The basic role of an audit of all social media accounts is to help you better understand what’s happening on each network and to see at a glance the following key metrics:

  • What’s working and what’s not
  • Whether impostor accounts are stealing your followers
  • Which profiles you need to revive, repurpose, or shut down
  • New opportunities to grow and engage your audience
  • Are you being consistent and considered with your messaging

At Source PR, we’re often asked to complete company social media audits as it’s critical to understand the key elements mentioned above before embarking on developing an effective social media strategy.  To constructively move forward with an effective social media strategy it’s important to first know where you are before you determine where you want to go.

What Does A Social Media Audit Look Like?

Visibility

When undertaking a social media audit, first look at what @handles are you using, over what platforms and who has ownership or control.  Is there brand consistency across the platforms, what do the biogs say and where are you directing any subsequent web visitors?  Also, look at the imagery you’re using and check that the pages are verified to prevent imposters.

Needs & Wants

From this point you can determine what platforms and handles a business needs / wants as well as determine what’s working and what’s not.  Take the time to look at what are the most engaging posts, who is engaging with you and on what platforms as well as which networks your target audience is most active on.

Competitor Analysis

We would also recommend that you compare your approach and outlook to the competition, evaluating how you compare to them and whether you are missing any opportunities to engage with audiences or simply getting the best out of the platforms. At Source PR, we have social media tools that can track and monitor in-depth competitor activity as well as physically doing the legwork ourselves.

Identify KPIs

When auditing you social media platforms remember to stay focused on the key performance indicators (KPIs) that you want to measure.  Some of the more popular measurements can be increases in followers, link clicks, profile visits, likes / comments and other engagements.

Social Media Audit Services

Undertaking an effective social media audit for business helps determine where you are before you develop the strategy and pathway on where you want to go.  Get in touch with our team if you’re looking for support with your social media audit.  Once this is done, the real fun can begin with the development of an effective and fun social media strategy to better excite, engage and enthuse your audiences.  Watch this space and follow our social media accounts for future updates where we will share some of our social media success strategies.