Social Media Life Cycle

Many businesses are active on social media but not all have an established creative process to decide what content to post and when. To gain an optimal return on investment from your social media efforts, your content development should be as strategic and deliberate as any other marketing initiative for your business. Social media provides a more casual, personal and instant way to connect with your audience, and each post should serve to further the goals of your business. 

At R&A, we plan social media content monthly for our clients and our brand. This allows us the necessary time to establish our goals, plan our strategies and key messages, develop and implement content and evaluate the results.

Here is a monthly four-step cycle that will help your business cut through crowded news feeds and grab your audience’s attention with tactful social media content.

REPORTING: Review the previous month’s social media performance and collect data on specific key metrics. It is important to complete reporting before you plan future posts as a guide for your next steps. Make note of which posts performed well and which didn’t as well as what factors contributed to these results. Before you know it, you have the blueprint for next month’s content.

Learn more about using Google Analytics to gain insight on your brand’s website and consumer behavior with our Google Analytics 101 blog.

PLANNING: Ask yourself: What are my goals for social media? Is it to gain brand awareness? To increase sales? Allow these responses to inform the type of content you plan to create. You are on social media to tell a story, so create key messages for your posts that will direct your audience’s thoughts, actions and behaviors to your brand.

Planning is a vital step to narrowing your focus and streamlining your creativity to ensure each action on social media is meaningful and can be used to further your business goals.

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT: Draft copy for each post keeping in mind your key messages as well as any call to actions you want your audience to consume. Think about what user tags or hashtags you can leverage and insert visuals to accompany your posts. Once everything is compiled, review, make edits and finalize the posts. If you use scheduling tools for social media, you can schedule your posts in this step as well.

Catch up on the top content trends for 2020 with our Social Media Forecast blog.

IMPLEMENTING + ENGAGING: Next up… release all of your hard work to the world! You are now putting your strategies in motion to achieve your goals. As your posts go live, it is important to keep a watchful eye on post engagement; followers will begin to interact with likes, comments and shares. Establish rapport and brand loyalty by responding with gratitude and appreciation for their support.

Once you’ve completed the cycle, circle back to the beginning to start preparing for the next month. It’s important to note this cycle is open to optimization, making subtle changes each month based on what you are hoping to achieve.

Check out how we have helped clients unlock their full potential on social media in our portfolio, featuring the social media launch of the Glass Light Hotel & Gallery.

Have questions or want to learn more? Reach out to our team of experts who can analyze and report on your social media data to help you better understand your social media decisions. Give us a ring at 757.962.7375 or shoot us an email at info@ReedandAssociatesMarketing.com.

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