How to Build Social Media Into Your Content Marketing Processes
The content you post on social media has the power to turn your brand into a household name and turn your followers into fans. However, social media and content marketing are quite different. The easiest way to associate the relationship between the two is that content is needed to drive social media, while social media is most essential for identifying your audience and distributing content. You can’t really have one without the other.
Your processes within social media and content marketing will depend on industry and audience.
At Blue Whale Media, our marketing team has put together a comprehensive guide on how to build social media into your content marketing processes, here’s what you need to know:
Set goals that make sense for your business
Having goals in mind for your long-term social media strategy will help you to start planning the types of content to create. This involves digging deep into your brand values as well as researching your audience. The more specific your goals are, the better you will be able to tailor your social media content to meet those goals. The results of your content strategy can make or break your brand on social media, this is why we suggest you have a structured and streamlined approach. This is because all your other content marketing operations are so closely bound to your strategy you’ll want to get it right from the very beginning.
Establish your target audience
To create engaging content that resonates with your audience, it’s crucial that you understand who your audience is. Keep in mind that social media also offers a massive amount of information and data about who people are and what they care about. It services as an opportunity for each person who might just be outside of your target buyer persona. Note that consumers increasingly favour businesses whose values often align with their own. Social media can serve as an outlet for companies to take a public stand on timely issues.
Create a daily to-do list
A social content calendar will help you stay on top of your monthly to-dos. By actively engaging with your audience, whether that’s responding to DM’s, likes, or sharing posts in which your brand is mentioned, you’ll create more transparency with your brand. It’s a good idea to monitor social trends, buzzwords and hashtags on a daily basis. By keeping up to date on topics that are trending means you’ll gain insight into the preferences and interests of wider audiences. Be sure to keep an eye on your competition too, continue to make a note of their daily social behaviour.
Promote and distribute your content
Your content strategy goes beyond what you post on social media channels. A good strategy involves finding ways to actively distribute your content so that as many people as possible view it. You can encourage your audience to engage with your content by asking a question and encourage them to share their answers via social media or in your blog comments section. If you’re only posting on social media the minute content goes live, you’re missing out on a massive opportunity for optimising your reach.
Effectively planning and building social media into your content strategy is an ongoing cycle, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Social media offers the exciting opportunity to increase brand awareness, build and strengthen digital presence.
Don’t hesitate to regularly test new tactics and adjust your method accordingly, head to Blue Whale Media’s contact us page for more information.
