Only Social Media Content Strategy You Need — Freelance Content Writer’s Take.
I’ve been a freelance content writer for more than a year now and this is my trusted social media strategy example. If you want to write social media content for your business, this is ALL you need!
Writing a script or caption for a Social Media Post is no less than peeking through the lens of a Social Media Manager. Tricks that SMMs use for better performance of social media handles have a great contribution to posts. After all, what do we do on social media?
We post stuff.
As a content writer, whenever I write social media captions or prepare scripts for Instagram or Facebook videos, I use a set of techniques. The set of techniques is called Social Media Strategy.
I’ve divided Social Media Strategy into two parts. According to Mishika’s very own division, the parts are called FrontEnd and BackEnd.
Will discuss the FrontEnd in the upcoming blog, it’ll come sooner than you think.
Meanwhile, let me walk you through the BackEnd elements. These hidden elements. You just need to keep these things in mind during the preparation.
Consider this framework (of BackEnd elements) before starting the writing process. If you have 5 days to write social media content, spend 3-4 days on the framework. With all the elements and research in place, the writing part will take less than a day or two.
Let’s see the elements, shall we?
- AIM
Remember those Lab Practicals we used to do in school? The first line of practicals used to be — AIM — The purpose behind conducting experiments.
Likewise, the first question to ask a client or yourself is — What is the whole point of creating Social Media Content? It can be sales, traction, fame, or whatever.
If a company sells chopsticks, it might be looking to boost sales/have more conversions/get more clicks/gain popularity, and so on and so forth. If you’re a Freelancer, you might want to get inbound leads, create authority and credibility, etc.
If there are already a fancy amount of followers and sales on the page, you can use Google Analytics or Facebook pixels to track sales from socials.
Not having a goal will result in an unwanted outcome, and can also be a waste of time, energy, and money so just have or decide one ASAP.
The content must be highly aligned with the decided goal. You can design it by asking the right questions. Now, the question is — What are those questions?
>What amount of sales do they want?
>Is the goal measurable?
>Is it achievable?
>Is it relevant to the kind of content going on the channel(s)?
>Is the goal attainable in the given timeline?
These questions are enough to formulate an AIM for the content. Go!
2. Target Group Research
The target group/audience is the people you want to deliver your content or sell your product to.
The owners usually know their target group, their persona, and their pain points. A business owner must know at least 5 characteristics of his/her ideal group if not all.
It’s a matter of concern when an owner isn’t aware of the target audience.
But the world doesn't end here, you can always help them understand the concept. If they refuse to take your help and want to find their Target Group on their own — my friend, the world ends here, take the red flag and find another client!
Now, why do we need to decide on a Target Group, in the first place?
Their likings, dislikings, preferences, basically every detail about them will decide the tone and voice used in the social media content.
For instance, if the Target Group is South Delhi girls, adding a touch of Starbucks to the content will make it super relatable for them.
Zomato is all about memes and relatable content because people who the app is for, love memes.
Moreover, doing personal research will add a brownie point.
Go to every corner of Google and search about the product the company wants to sell, observe what people are talking about, what they want, what they’re getting, and where’s the gap — fill it and create content that connects
3. Competition research
Analyze the competitors during your research and most importantly, notice their platform preferences. If the majority of them are using Twitter full beat, simply means your TG is hanging out on Twitter.
So, start tweeting today!
For most startups, investors are highly interested in knowing the strategies their competitors are following. They want their venture to at least follow the same because obviously, they must be doing it for a reason.
4. Social Scrutinize
Scrutinizing the socials means looking over what has been done on the channels.
Document everything, set thresholds, and see what all good your social media content does to their social media presence after 3 months. Go through their analytics, screenshot everything, make an excel sheet of their progress and come back later after the project to develop a case study.
Target Group Research, Competition Research, and Social Scrutinize (Audit) are entire services in themselves. If you spend the entire month doing all these, you can totally charge for these services.
5. Develop Systems:
Systems primarily include using scheduling tools, deciding on content pillars, setting them up and creating a content calendar, making changes to it according to suggestions, and getting it all approved.
You can also help them develop SOPs for their organization.
SOPs are nothing but a step-by-step procedure as to how the workers will carry out all the operations within an organization.
6. Implement:
The best scheduling tool is the Facebook Creator Studio.
Use Buffer (free) to schedule Tweets.
I prefer scheduling every week and not a month. Simply because of ever-changing trends.
Pro Tip: Have some rainy-day content ready. This is highly informative, educational, original, and gold content you save for special days — Just like ants hoard up their food inventory on rainy days.
Next time, while writing social media content or developing a social media strategy for a client or yourself, all you’ll need to do is go through all these steps, implement and voilà
You’re good to go!
If you liked what you just read, or even if you didn’t like it all — let me know all your thoughts through comments and we’ll have a chat (which may shift to gossip later)
Until then,
Buh bye
Happy Writing :)
And drink water, it’s been a while
Your throat must be drying.
