12 October, 2017

The benefits of social media are clearly enormous, but without a strong strategy you may just be flinging messages out into the ether, hoping for the best. Having a strategy for your social media activity can help you make the most of the good things this method of communication can bring.

Social media is a great way of connecting with your audience – listening to them and building relationships. A strategy should identify your priority audiences and set out goals for how and how much you want to reach them. Analytics are vital for quantifying how successfully you are doing this, and can identify who is responding well to what kinds of content, IE is video shared more by a certain age bracket, is a whole section of audience not engaging? When you refer back to your strategic goals you can adjust what you’re putting out to make sure you’re appealing to strategically important audiences.

At a time when people are concerned about the prevalence of ‘fake news’, positioning your organisation as a reliable source of information has never been more important. You can use your strategy to plan what proportion of your social media content will be ‘broadcasting’ information, depending on how important it is for you to counter misinformation. When you are developing your strategy you can also consider how you’re going to respond to false accusations and criticism on social media – plan ahead, don’t wait for problems to arise.

The community-led and organic nature of social media is fantastic for letting your supporters spread the word about you in an independent, authentic, and therefore trustworthy, way. However this does mean you’ll have to be willing to respond to changes that naturally occur in such an environment, and adapt your strategy if needed. Plan for regular review points to make sure your original goals and methods still apply.

If you’re thinking about creating a social media strategy but don’t know where to start, take a look at our free guide. It covers the steps to take, including the various elements you’ll need to deliver it.