How To Build A Social Media Strategy
Our approach to social media management has changed more than once since we started doing it at Leadmachine. We tried different ways to manage projects as well as new methods of creating and promoting content. Finally we have come up with a certain work pattern that we try to adhere to now. It is related both to our work within the team and our interaction with clients.
Working together with the client
Team work between the contractor and the client is paramount to the success of your social media campaign. And it makes sense because no one other than the client knows their business and its news better. That’s why our primary task at the beginning of the cooperation is to dive into the client’s business and study their product thoroughly . And the client’s role is to understand our approach and arrange training for our specialists..
I’ll explain why the client needs this. It would be naive to assume that if the agency has taken care of the brand’s social media promotion, the company can rest. On the contrary, your work has just begun. Our common goal is to become a team. We provide ideas, experience, knowledge, skills, and people. And you give us information about the company’s life, feedback, and willingness to develop and change. Social media management is not a perfunctory thing. If you come to the place where people are, be ready to talk to these people, adjust to their wishes, and explain your message. And you won’t be alone doing it, as we will be there for you.
One soldier does not make a battle
It doesn’t matter if your project is huge or not, it should always be handled by a team. The project manager ensures that the basic requirements for social media content are met, and the KPIs approved by the client are reached. They also adjust the strategy and promotion tactics. The content manager and the designer together create unique content and post it in the client’s groups.The community manager interacts with the audience.
If you fail to pay due attention to at least one of these aspects, you won’t succeed. Good content won’t be noticed without promotion. And vice versa, no promotional efforts will help you if you are boring. And of course the group will never become alive if no one communicates with users and answers their questions.
The project manager makes sure that the community entertains users as much as it solves the company’s problems. That’s why it was created in the first place.
Structure of the SMM department at Leadmachine
Content golden rule
Apart from feedback, answers to their questions, quick solutions to their problems, bonuses, promos and discounts group members get something else that makes them come back to the community over and over again. It’s education and entertainment. We have defined the golden rule of content that specifies a perfect ratio of different types of posts (40% of engaging posts, 30% of user-generated content, 25% of educational posts, 5% of promotional content). If this ratio gets changed in favour of any type of content, it always negatively affects the performance. Either we lose the audience, or we don’t reach our business goals.
In addition to maintaining this ratio we strive to post unique and interesting content. We carry out photo shoots with the client's products, and come up with new features in order to be different from others. We have a creativity day in our company when our designers abandon their PCs and do arts and crafts. And there are brainstorming days when all teams gather to generate new ideas for all projects.
Creating unique content
Of course, each of our employees understands how important it is to be the first on the Internet. Studying new tools and services is an indispensable part of our teams’ work. Everyone is tasked to find, apply, and teach the others whatever is new and useful. It is important to optimize your work and do it first. Competitors never sleep.
Client addiction
We highly appreciate it that our client has trusted us with the communication with their clients, because this basically is the most valuable asset of any company. So we have no right to let them down. Both fast feedback and its quality matter here. We spend huge amounts of time analyzing the client’s business to make this interaction efficient. And we are always in touch with our clients. We must deliver a quick and expert answer to the user’s request no matter what it is: a thank you or a problem. Our client’s reputation and the value of our communities depend on the quality of our work here. Communication is the basis of social media. The client’s interaction with their audience is the basis of SMM. Naturally, we pay our utmost attention to it.
Honesty is the key
I have already said that lots of things have changed since we started doing SMM. But there is one rule that has always been there and we are not going to abandon it. We never resort to black hat techniques of promotion. No bots to increase the group’s following. No fake reviews from "brand advocates". The purpose of our work is to establish a connection between your company and your customers, help you become better, help your clients understand you. Unethical promo methods are inappropriate as they undermine both your and our reputation. And we care about them both.
In order to measure the efficiency of our work we choose transparent KPIs that are approved by the customer. They give a clear understanding if we are moving in the right direction or if it's time to introduce some changes. If the goal is website traffic, then the KPI is the click-through rate from social media to the site. If we want to track certain conversion rates, we need to properly set up goals in analytics tools. If the goal is to create a loyal community and increase brand awareness, we pay attention to the growth of the follower base and engagement. And if social media are primarily used as a means of providing support to users, the KPI is the number of questions received and replied to.
Each goal has its own KPI that at a quick glance helps us understand if we are doing it right.
How to calculate daily engagement rate
How to calculate engagement rate per post
Let’s sum it up
Do you want to achieve specific goals using SMM? Define them, build the strategy with the contractor and be ready to change. You will have to work with the contractor as one team, create unique content together, interact with your audience, monitor new tools and use them constantly measuring the efficiency.
Remember, SMM is a powerful weapon that, when used properly, becomes even more effective over time. Don’t stop halfway and everything will work out well