Save Time And Maximise Your Output

If you’re running the social media accounts for a business you’ve no doubt spent many hours wondering what you should post and when you should post it.

Building a social media presence that represents your brand requires more than the odd post here or there. You need a well thought out plan to ensure everything you post is aligned to your brand, uses the correct tone of voice and adds value to your audience.

While this may seem like a daunting task, here at Promote Social | Media we have a fool proof method that only takes a few hours each month and guarantees a consistent approach to your social media.

1. Strategy – The strategy is a one-off task that you need to do before you do anything else and ultimately it will act as a guide for the type of posts you will create. The most important part of your strategy is determining your content pillars. Think of content pillars as the general topics that your posts will fall under. Having these topics pre-defined will ultimately save you time when it comes to thinking of what to post about.

To develop your content pillars you will need to deep dive into your target audience and have a think about what would interest them that is also aligned to your business. Also consider how you can integrate your personality into your content, remember this is SOCIAL media.

Not every post should be promotional. Too many promotional posts will put people off following your account and engaging with your content. Ideally you should have 3-4 content pillars, one of these pillars can of course be promotion, but the other 2-3 should be something that adds value to your followers, this could be through informative or educational posts, aspirational and/or inspirational posts and even a behind the scenes look at your life or business.

Once you’ve decided on your pillars you are ready to move on to step 2.

2. Monthly Content Planning – Once per month you should carve out a few hours to write up all your posts for next month. Depending on which industry you’re in you may be posting anywhere from twice a week to daily, this is something you should consider before getting started.

For most of our clients we recommend four posts per week. To make sure you are writing your posts to match your content pillars you should set yourself up with a template in powerpoint, the one we use has four slides, one for each week of the month, with space for four posts on each slide. Each slot has a content pillar section, a space for the chosen image and a space for the text or caption. This way before you even start writing you know which pillar your post must align to. Click here to download our content calendar template.

Once this is all laid out it’s time to get writing. You may like to start by choosing the topics for all your posts and then going back and writing them all, after a few months you will find a method that works best for you.

A handy side note: keep track of any ideas that pop into your head throughout the month so when your content writing day comes around you already have a few topics up your sleeve.

3. Scheduling Your Posts – When your posts have been written, proof read and approved (if required) it’s time to schedule them so you can get on with your other jobs.

When it comes to posting on Facebook you can schedule your posts within the platform itself. You simply need to navigate to the publishing tools section of the page and you can load in all of your posts and schedule them to go live on the appropriate dates.

Other platforms don’t offer the same functionality, luckily there are tools available that allow you to schedule your posts so you don’t have to manually post them every day. For Instagram our personal favourite is Planoly it allows you to load in up to 30 images per month and move them around to make sure your Instagram grid will be visually appealing. You can also pre save hashtag stacks so it’s easy to add the right tags without having to write them out for each post. Planoly is free to use for one account with up to 30 images a month, if you want more images or run multiple accounts you can pay a monthly subscription and unlock more features.

If you are looking to post to LinkedIn as well, you may consider investing in a social media scheduling tool. There are lots on the market, offering slightly different versions of the same thing, so make sure you do your research and find the right tool for your business.

4. Community Engagement – Once you are posting regular content on your social accounts the most important step is to be checking back in.

Each day you should be logging in (ideally just after your post goes live) and responding to comments and messages and inviting people who have engaged with you to like your page or profile.

Once or twice per week you should also be doing some outreach, on Instagram this means engaging with your followers content, liking and commenting on posts using the same hashtags as you and commenting on industry leaders content.

Facebook outreach will vary depending on your business but will involve being present and commenting from the business page on other relevant pages and content.

LinkedIn outreach involves following industry leaders and staying up to date with content related to your industry then providing meaningful comments and opinions from your business profile.

Be Seen On Social

These four steps are a fool proof way to ensure your business stands out on social media. Now more than ever it’s essential not only to be present but active on your business pages.

If you understand the value of running high quality content on your business accounts but don’t have the time or creativity to turn out posts, get in touch with us today to see how we can help you grow your social media presence.