The Facts on Social Media: Make Sure You’re Doing It Right

Social media is crowded. Every company, brand, and person is on social.

And this means you can’t waste your time. You need a strategy. You need a plan.

You need to know what works and what doesn’t work. Remember, social is the best way for you to build connected and invested communities.

Last year we ran a long series on social media. We gave you lots of information about key social skills like social listening, engagement, content planning, and metrics.

And now, we’re giving you this information again. But this time, we’ve drilled down to the key facts you need on social media – so you can make sure you’re doing it right.

If you want to read the long versions (and believe me – you do), follow these links:

• Learning About Social Listening
• Learning About Social Media Engagement
• Learning About Social Media Content Planning and Publishing
• How Do You Measure Social Media Success?

Of course, if you’d rather stop reading now and drop me an email about your social media strategy – then go for it. The Know Agency team is here and keen to help you out.

What is Social Listening?

Social listening is the process of tracking social media conversations connected to your key topics, keywords, brands, and industry.

Your social media strategy must be based on this social listening data.

Social listening data gives you the who, what, why, when, and how of the social media conversations happening about your brand, industry, company, products, and services.

With social listening you can understand how to effectively engage on social media.

Use your social listening data to:

• Understand how strong your brand is on social.
• Create the social content that resonates.
• Take advantage of user-generated content.
• Put the customer experience first.

What does Social Media Engagement Mean?

Social media engagement is a catch-all phrase for the likes, comments, shares, retweets, etc. that tell you how your social content resonates with your followers.

Social media is all about being social. This means you need to do what so many brands and companies neglect.

Social media engagement means you need to respond to reader comments, questions, feedback, shares, and likes.

Everyone wants to be liked and know that someone is paying attention to what they’re doing. Make sure you’re engaging and thanking people for caring about what you’re doing.

Remember these keys to social media engagement:

• Be human.
• Be accessible.
• Think content first.
• Be mindful.
• Be honest.
• Treat people well.
• Be consistent.

Do I Really Need a Social Media Content Plan?

Yes, you need a social media content plan.

Your social media content is part of your brand and company voice. This is exactly why you need to think about and plan your social posts.

The random Tweets, Facebook shares, and Instagram selfies don’t work anymore. You need to stand out on social for the right reasons – know why you’re posting what you’re posting.

One wrong Tweet or misplaced Like on Facebook can create a social media storm that you really don’t want to be part of.

Think of your social media content as your person on the street connection to your customers and audience.

One person reads a post from you, it resonates, so they share or retweet it, then someone else reads it, the content resonates, and the cycle continues. This is what your brand needs to get social working for you.

Know these social media content planning and publishing tips:

• Use the right social media channel in the right way.
• Have an inclusive publishing strategy.
• Know what is happening in your company – product release, trade shows, key marketing pushes, etc.
• Make it easy for your audience to take action.
• Know what your audience is doing with your social media content.

Your social media content is your brand and company voice. Make sure you’re posting content that aligns with your brand, image, and goals.

How Do I Measure Social Media Success?

Measuring your social media success comes down to 5 key steps:

1. Define your social media goals. These goals should guide and inform why you’re on social media. If you don’t have any social media goals – why are you on social? Without goals, your social strategy could hurt your brand.
2. Decide what you should measure. There is so much social media data. To drill into the right data for your brand you need to connect what you’re measuring to your social media goals.
3. Measure your social media success. This is when you need to crunch the data and the numbers. Yes, this means charts and spreadsheets. Not a lot of fun. We get it. And this is why you need Know Agency tracking, measuring, and analyzing your social media success.
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5. Adjust your social media strategy. Now that you’ve been measuring your social media success – it’s time to make changes. Changes that help you accomplish your social media goals. Changes that allow you to connect with and build a social community.
6. Call in the professionals. Yes, this is when you call us. You’re not a social media expert. So why are you getting stressed out about social media?

Know Agency knows social media and we know digital marketing, content strategy, SEO, and search.

You stick to what you do best, and we’ll do what we do best for you.

Your Social Media Success Strategy

To be completely honest, your social media success strategy really depends on what you decide to do.

There is no magic tool, posting strategy, or keyword that is going to do the social media work for you.

Just like you built your brand and company – you need to do the same with your social media presence.

The best thing you can do for your social media success strategy is to trust the experts. Trust Know Agency to get your social media channels working for you.

Email me or Kevin to find out how can get you the social media success your brand needs.

About the author
Jane Phelps is the CEO/Partner at Know Agency. Jane is the main point of contact for our clients and handles all aspects of in-house SEO demands. This includes providing SEO training, competitive analysis, keyword research, algorithm analysis, and the review of all new content to ensure SEO best-practices are followed. Jane holds a Master’s Certificate in Online Marketing from the University of San Francisco, is BrightEdge Certified and is the head of the BrightEdge User Group in Atlanta, GA.