Creating a Social Media Content Strategy | Insights From Amanda Lai, Wattpad

There’s a lot of noise out there —and it’s only getting louder. With 500 million tweets going out every day, you’re going to need to make yours count! Here are some things to keep in mind when creating your social media content strategy:

Know Your Audience

Before you start tweeting, Instagramming, pinning or snapping, really get to know who you’re talking to.  Find out who they are, what they like, and what they’re all about —this kind of insight will help you craft content that will actually resonate with your audience.

Twitter Analytics

Twitter Analytics can tell you a lot about your followers: where they’re from, if they’re male or female, what their top interests are —you can even find out what genre of TV show they like best.

Facebook Insights

With Facebook Insights you can learn a lot about your fans: find out how old they are, what language they speak, and even what time of day they’re usually online.

Hootsuite, SproutSocial, and TweetDeck

These social media management tools are a great way to keep tabs on what your community is talking about. Monitor your @mention stream and create custom keyword searches to listen in!

Join the Right Conversations

Once you understand your audience, you can start crafting content that works. But how do you make sure you’re getting in front of the right eyeballs? Do your hashtag research.

RiteTag

RiteTag lets you see the potential views that a specific hashtag gets every hour, the volume of unique tweets using that tag, and even suggests other relevant hashtags for you to use.

Iconosquare

Iconosquare compares your Instagram hashtags with those that are most often searched. Make sure you post your content at the suggested times to optimize visibility.

Measure Success

Defining success depends on your business objectives. No longer are brands solely concerned with vanity metrics like follower count or retweets. Ask yourself: why are you on social media in the first place?

Google Analytics

Using GA to track links can give you a more in-depth look into your content’s performance. See how long users are staying on your site after clicking, or how many people are converting, etc.

HashTracking

If you’re running a hashtag campaign, use HashTracking to see how many people you’ve reached, how many tweets are being sent, and how many unique people are engaging with you tag. This will help you define future goals and objectives.

Twitter Analytics/Facebook Insights

Lastly, going back to Twitter Analytics and Facebook Insights is a good idea when it comes to measuring success. Evaluate your individual pieces of content and find out how many people are actually clicking on your links —if your objective is to get people onto your website, then link clicks should be more interesting to you than metrics like retweets or likes.

If awareness is what you’re after, you’ll want to look at impression numbers and engagement rates to define success. Ask yourself why some tweets are getting higher numbers than others —is it because of the type of content, the time of day you’re posting, or the hashtags you’re using? These are all important things to consider.

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