Planning Your 2022 Social Strategy
All good social media managers plan their social strategy MONTHS before it needs to be put in place. For example, I’m sitting writing this on October 23rd as I try figure out where the fuck to take my blog in the next year.
I remember when I worked at the social media agency, all Christmas content had to be completed in November, and any Christmas graphics requests needed to be sent sooner than that. Christmas is a marketers nightmare as content needs to be scheduled in advanced, whilst making plans for 2022.
Planning and preparation is key in marketing, but sometimes we fall short or miss a major algorithm update when planning the 2022 approach.
At the age of 23, I’m one of the lucky ones who grew up with social media. I remember the Ask.FM days, and stalking your mates best friends list on snapchat. But I also remember the time when we were obsessed with pokemon cards, match attacks, and GoGo’s. Looking at the kids growing up now with the MoMo challenge, TikTok, I don’t think they’ll ever realise the true value of social media.
If I’m honest, I don’t think I ever really valued the internet and social media until I got to University. My passion had always been writing, I was obsessed with the idea of becoming the next Theroux or Sarah Jane Smith. Anything that gave me the chance to write and get my story out there appealed to me. But halfway through my Journalism Degree in Chester, I realised I didn’t really care too much for political writing, or any sort of journalistic writing. As the media moves from print to digital, our class were taught about social media marketing, getting a story out to the masses in a way that completely obliterated the modern media I once aimed to be a part of.
I kind of liked it. Soon I began to want a career in PR and Marketing, and however vain it may make me, I liked the idea of growing a loyal following, impacting trends and still getting my story out. So I freelanced, helped small businesses grow their audience, I wrote for local magazines, befriended business owners and did my very best to become a name around the area.
Now four years later I’m a marketing executive at a software company in central London and I’m so happy with where I am in life. I live with my best friend from Uni in a tower block so high I can see the shard from my bedroom. I freelance on the sidelines for a selection of amazing businesses and still find time to travel around London to take photos or my personal blog.
I feel like I’ve done pretty well in the grand scheme of things, but I know the learning curve is endless, especially in my career path. I dare you to find me one marketer who knows everything there is to know about our industry.
Social media?
SEO?
UTMs?
Graphic design?
Web development?
Video editing?
Blimey, the list goes on.
Nobody is absolutely perfect, everyone still has a lot of room to grow. There’s always new trends to jump on, content strategies to adjust, and new algorithms to familiarise yourself with at the worst possible times.
To grow my freelancing business I’ve spent hours pouring over skillshop, blueprint, hubspot, and more. I love learning, but at times where I’m spinning plates and pushing away the burnout it can be tedious.
Why do we need to know the algorithm?
Social media algorithms police the internet. They maintain order, and they ensure your content gets in front of the right people. And although many of us would probably prefer to do something much more creative it’s an unnecessary evil for marketers to learn.
Social media algorithms are always changing, the task of keeping up with the changes is a part of the marketing code of conduct. There’s no definite way to understand every detail that goes into every change, but once you understand the apps goals you can pretty much guess the rest.
Depending on the social media platforms you look at, your experience will differ dramatically.
But what is the algorithm?
An algorithm is a mathematical set of rules specifying how a group of data behaves. In social media, algorithms police social media, they assist with your search ranking and advertisements.
Take Facebook for example, there is an algorithm which directs pages and content to display in a particular order. There are billions of internet users, and a large portion of them are on social media. Managing and monitoring the content they produce is no small feat. Which is why these algorithms are crucial in determining the quality of the accounts and content.
While there are no handbooks on the many algorithms and how to maintain them (until now), we can work out what is needed to navigate the landscape pretty easily.
For example, one of the biggest shifts over the past few years has been the move to user-friendly algorithms, similar to Google’s ranking system. The shift encourages us as marketers to post relevant, quality content, and engage with customers wherever we can.
Here’s tips for planning your social media strategy, according to Hootsuite. Where these tips were originally posted.
How to plan your social strategy this year
Set S.M.A.R.T. goals
The first step to creating a winning strategy is to establish your objectives and goals. Without goals, you have no way to measure success and return on investment (ROI).
Each of your goals should be:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-bound
This is the S.M.A.R.T. goal framework. It will guide your actions and ensure they lead to real business results.
Here’s an example of a S.M.A.R.T. goal:
“We will use Twitter for customer support and lower our average response rate to under two hours by the end of the quarter.”
Track meaningful metrics
Vanity metrics like number of followers and likes are easy to track, but it’s hard to prove their real value. Instead, focus on things like engagement, click-through, and conversion rates.
For inspiration, take a look at these 19 essential social media metrics.
You may want to track different goals for different social media networks, or even different uses for each network.
For example, if you use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your website, you would measure click-throughs. If Instagram is for brand awareness, you might track the number of Instagram Story views. And if you advertise on Facebook, cost-per-click (CPC) is a common success metric.
Social media goals should align with your overall marketing objectives. This makes it easier to show the value of your work and secure buy-in from your boss.
Create audience personas
Knowing who your audience is and what they want to see on social media is key. That way you can create content that they will like, comment on, and share. It’s also critical if you want to turn social media followers into customers for your business.
When it comes to your target customer, you should know things like:
Age
Location
average income
Typical job title or industry
Interests
etc.
Here’s a simple guide and template for creating audience/buyer personas.
Get to know your fans, followers, and customers as real people with real wants and needs, and you will know how to target and engage them on social media.
Gather data
Don’t make assumptions. Think Facebook is a better network for reaching Baby Boomers than Millennials? Well, the numbers show that Facebook’s largest age demographic is actually 30-49.
Social media analytics can also provide a ton of valuable information about who your followers are, where they live, and how they interact with your brand on social media. These insights allow you to refine your strategy and better target your audience.
Jugnoo, an Uber-like service for auto-rickshaws in India, used Facebook Analytics to learn that 90% of their users who referred other customers were between 18- and 34-years-old, and 65% of that group was using Android. They used that information to target their ads, resulting in a 40% lower cost per referral.
Conduct a competitive analysis
A competitive analysis allows you to understand who the competition is and what they’re doing well (and not so well). You’ll get a good sense of what’s expected in your industry, which will help you set social media targets of your own.
It will also help you spot opportunities.
Maybe one of your competitors is dominant on Facebook, for example, but has put little effort into Twitter or Instagram. You might want to focus on the networks where your audience is underserved, rather than trying to win fans away from a dominant player.
Use social media listening
Social listening is another way to keep an eye on your competitors.
Do searches of the competition’s company name, account handles, and other relevant keywords on social media. Find out what they’re sharing and what other people are saying about them.
Pro tip: Use a social media management tool like Hootsuite to set up listening streams to monitor relevant keywords and accounts in real-time.