How To Plan Your Social Media Content Effectively

 

of your campaign; when you have these, you build on them, and look closer at the details – your audience, content style, competition, platforms etc – finally, the ‘house’ is your campaign – now fully built, designed and ready to run. Without a plan, it’s like going in blind – you may have ideas, but they may not be executed to their full potential or you may run into trouble and have no strategy to help you fix any problems or change any elements. Your team also won’t be working on a consistent plan, meaning some may have different plans to another – making your campaigns feel disjointed. With a plan, everyone is working towards the same thing with the same outlines and guidance. 

You may be wondering what exactly you need to include in said social media plan – from knowing what to post to where to post, you need to ensure the following is included when it comes to your content plans: 

 

Content Themes: Think of the themes you plan to use in your content – it can be a mixture of different ones like industry news, company news, behind the scenes, product information or updates, new features of products – whatever you choose, it needs to be made clear to your team what topics and themes you want to focus on, and how much you want to focus on them. You can also choose to follow the ‘Rule of Thirds’ when it comes to your social media content – this is where you have a third of posts that promote your products or services, a third that’s focused on sharing stories and content from others in your industry, and a third that leans on interactions and personalising and humanising your customers’ experience with your brand on social media. 

 

Audience: Who are you talking to with your content? You should already have a good idea of who your target audience is, but now you need to figure the type of content they’re interested in, styles that they respond to, the trends that are currently circulating within that age group, the platforms they’re most likely to use and most importantly, how your products relates to them and hits their pain points. A great visual and wording can be the first step to getting them invested, but they won’t purchase if they don’t need your product. Make it clear that what you have to sell is the solution to a key problem they’re having. 

 

Post Timings: This may be a little more difficult to plan if you haven’t already been posting on social media, but having a consistent schedule that hits your audiences’ timelines just as they come online can be a huge benefit for your business. Social media platforms like TikTok will let you know when your followers are most active, helping you plan your content around when they’re likely to be opening up their social media profiles – posting just before helps to keep your content at the top of their feeds. Scheduling tools can be helpful if you don’t have the time to help you log on exactly when needed each day you post – whether you use the platforms own scheduling options or third-party tools. 

 

Keywords and Hashtags: Keywords and hashtags play a huge role in your social media marketing posts – having copy that’s rich with relevant keywords and utilises hashtags that relate to your industry and post topics can aid with increasing your visibility and reach. When people these keywords or hashtags, you’ll want your content to be one of the first things they see – which also is handy for brand awareness. 

 

Platforms: We’ve lightly touched on this throughout, but really is essential that you know what platforms you want to use. Sure, you can use all of them if you wanted, but it’s not likely to bring you the best results – really honing in on a couple of platforms where your target is most likely to be can be the thing that helps to make or break your campaign. If you’re posting for a Gen Z audience on Facebook but not TikTok or Instagram you could be losing out on a valuable audience, whereas if you prioritise those platforms instead you can potentially take your marketing performance to the next level. Picking your platforms relies heavily on your target audience, so when it comes to your plan make sure you’ve aligned these two things. 

 

Content Style: Now we have to consider the stye of your content – videos, pictures, infographics, blogs or live streams, you must have a solid idea of what you want to create that will sell your social media campaigns. Again, look at what your target audience is most likely to engage with, if you need some time to figure this out try a mix and see what gets the best engagement or if you already know exactly what style you’re going for, make your content unique, branded and a stand out amongst your competition. 

 

Analyse Your Competitors: Speaking of competition, looking at the type of content they post, what they sell and how they interact with their followers is a good way to get started. As you’ll be competing in the same space, find your own niche but see how others successfully market and use this idea as inspiration – not a copy – for your own marketing efforts. 

Hopefully you’ll find these tips helpful – once you’ve got your plan figured out, get started and see how it helps your social media marketing much more effective.