April brings the second instalment of our monthly training series. If you didn’t catch last month’s article, we discussed some of the biggest mistakes business make when it comes to marketing, promotions and public relations. This month, we’re talking about Social Media Strategy!
Improved mobile connectivity globally has increased ‘on the go’ social activity, so it’s important to remember that your customers are active on social media. Purchasing decisions are increasingly influenced by social media, and a lack of strategy hands the advantage to your competitors. Blue Clay manages several social media accounts for clients, so we have taken the time to find the best ways to stay organised and on top of our social media strategies.
What is a Social Media Strategy and why do I need one?
Your Social Media Strategy forms part of your overall business plan, and simply defines the tools and processes your organisation will use to turn its target market into an engaged and expanding online audience.Before you can figure out your Social Media Strategy, you first need to clarify two things:
- Who is your target audience and which social media platforms do they use?
- What specific outcomes do you want achieve through using social media?
When the audience and goals are crystal clear, the strategy will follow quite naturally.These days, it’s uncommon to find an organisation without a social presence, and it’s becoming standard practice to develop a clear social strategy in alignment with the overarching goals of the business.
A strategy provides a framework through which to plan, prioritise, execute, measure and optimise your digital marketing efforts.
Your strategy will continue evolving in response to data analysis, which will dictate the ongoing direction of your online activity. Having a strategy will ensure your key messages are heard by the people you most want to talk to, and keep you focused on using relevant platforms to connect authentically with new and existing customers.
Investing in a social presence without a clear strategy (and simply posting to appear active), means you wont know whether or not your content is making a positive contribution to your business. You could even be doing more harm than good! Having a strong social media strategy removes risk of inefficiency and wasted resources on undirected activity – and no one wants that!
Your Strategy Informs Your Plan
Spreadsheets are a common way organisations are planning their social media calendar, but this method has many shortfalls. Not only do you need to keep referring to another document to ensure you’re sticking to the strategy, but this method is not visually engaging or collaboration-friendly, and most importantly – it’s time consuming. Blue Clay spent some time researching a bunch of paid social media planning tools, only to discover that the free project management tool we were already using was ideal.
What is Trello and how can it help?
Trello is a great project management tool for desktop, web and mobile, and it’s ideal for organisations who prioritise transparent communication and collaboration, and want to streamline their social media strategy and planning processes.
Trello enables you to store and display important resources, such as brand colours, logos and business information - keeping your strategy and plan together. This short demonstration video is a great introduction to the general use of Trello, which shows just how user friendly this free tool is! In summary:
- Each Trello board is made up of lists, each one representing a workflow.
- Create different boards for internal workflows, as well as workflows shared with clients. Getting clients to use this tool with you can be really helpful!
- Also a suppository for resources, ideas and notes (great for taking organised notes during meetings!)
- You can have as many boards as you like - for professional or personal use - and you can choose which boards other people can see and contribute to.
- Create different teams who have access to the boards which are relevant to them.
- Add ‘cards’ to a list - each card is a task.
- You can add attachments, descriptions, due dates, and comments to cards, as well as add team members to assign the whole task, or specific aspects of the task.
- Attach useful documents and links.
- Checklists break the task into manageable chunks or sub-tasks.
- Add coloured labels for quick visual reference.
- Tag team members and they’ll get a notification.
- Conversation about the task is transparent, everyone involved knows what’s going on.
- Cards can be updated at any point, moved across to different lists (click and drag), or copied to different boards (you can have unlimited boards for all kinds of things)
- Can filter the cards you see based on their labels, due dates or keywords.
- Organise daily tasks and integrate with Momentum Dash, Google Calendar and more!
- Trello even has its own in-built calendar view, using the due-date function on each card.
- Trello is also great for creating personal vision boards, holiday plans, etc. Why not learn how to organise your entire life with trello?
Transparent planning in Trello enables all team members and clients (when required) to flag any posts that they don’t like. A list can be created for the client to add images, copy and anything else they’d like to have used in social media posts. Unless a planned post is flagged, it can then be scheduled in Hootsuite or other social media scheduling tool.
Our Tips for Using Trello for Social Media Planning:
- Trello can show your planned social media posts in calendar format if you use the ‘due-date’ function on each card.
- Fixed post topics/types for each day of the week, using hashtags to extend your organic reach. Eg. #MotivationalMonday #TuesdayTestimonial
- Schedule time each week to edit images - using filters, colours, fonts and copy, which align with your brand. Organise images according to their relevant day of the week / post type.
- Post types can be a reflection of the menu on your website. e.g. ‘About Us’ ‘Services’ ‘Blog’ - but make sure you emphasise interaction and genuine value in all social media posts.
- Plan out the Monday posts for the month, then the Tuesday posts, and so on. This is more efficient than jumping around between different ideas.
- Transparent planning in Trello enables all team members and clients (when required), to flag any posts that might be deviating from your strategy
- A list can be created for your client to add images, copy and anything else they’d like to have used in social media posts.
- All approved posts can then be scheduled with Hootsuite (or other social media scheduling tool).
- Aim to keep planning at least a week ahead of posting - 2+ weeks is ideal.
- Take inspiration from this strategy and tweak it to suit the goals of your organisation.
If you’re finding our training content useful, follow us on Facebook&Instagram and keep an eye on our #TuesdayTips. If you’re unsure where to start with your social media strategy, we have social media packages to suit every budget - so get in touch and tell us your story!
