Making a great social media strategy - Part 1

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With so many platforms out there, there is no shortage of content to consume. For brands especially, the digital space is highly competitive. So how do we break through the clutter?

What is a strategy?

A strategy should be the foundation of any marketing activity. It is essentially a plan of action to achieve overall goals, and should answer the four W’s:

• Why do you want to be on social media? (Objectives)
• Who do you want to reach? (Target audience)
• What content are you planning to share? (Content marketing)
• Where are you going to post this content? (Social media marketing)

Something interesting to note is that social media marketing and content marketing are not mutually exclusive. The true marketing opportunity lies where you integrate the two.

A social media strategy focuses on making social media a successful channel for the delivery of content. Whereas, content marketing focuses on creating and distributing consistent, relevant, and valuable content to defined audiences when and where they are looking for it. A content marketing strategy should be the starting point of any social media strategy.

Content marketing fuels a social media strategy

More than twenty years ago, Bill Gates released an essay titled Content is King, which changed the course of digital marketing. He suggested that anyone or any brand could create and publish content online. But to be successful, there needed to be enough depth or interactivity in the content to capture the audience’s attention.

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Those who succeed will propel the Internet forward as a marketplace of ideas, experiences, and products - a marketplace of content. - Bill Gates

While the importance of relevant and on-demand content still rings true, we now live in a world where there are multiple social media platforms where audiences are consuming content. The context in which audiences are consuming content now highly influences how they interact and engage with brands online.

Good content marketing is only as good as the context it is provided in. If brands are making good content AND taking into account the context in which it will be consumed, it won’t interrupt a consumer but meet them in their day in authentic ways.

Look out for part 2 to find out how marketers can achieve this…