When it comes to social media content creation you may have tried everything and it is still hard to keep up with the constant need of posting fresh, engaging content on each platform daily. While batching your schedule to focus on social media activities during specific dayparts, scheduling content in advance and using an editorial calendar are all helpful tips, many business owners find it difficult to maintain social media consistency for extended periods of time.
There’s a solution at your disposal. One of the fastest ways to create well branded content is to leverage your internal team.
There are a few guidelines when it comes to utilizing your current team for social media marketing.
- Training: Setting your team up for success early on is necessary for getting this project to take flight. The vast majority of the workforce is familiar with the step by step actions to take to post a piece of content. Depending on the team’s current roles within the company it may be necessary to train on marketing specific topics such as copywriting, engagement and leveraging social for business. Here’s a few articles to use as a starting point: Create Headlines that Go Viral, Tips for Using Instagram for Business, Tips for Engagement.
The next topic for training is the content itself.
Your presence needs a little extra something, but what?
The usual answer is that it needs a point of view, someone to share their unique perspective on the situation, the industry and the brand. Your team is uniquely positioned to share behind the scenes happenings like live events, workspaces and collaborative idea generating session.
Think Global’s team posted live during an invitation only special event.
University Hills Animal Hospital showed a photo of their most adorable patient of the day.
BCorporation’s team highlighted a scene from their event.
Make My Notebook’s team shared what it was like meet Guy Kawasaki at a recent event.
Valentina Shoes shows shoes that are ready to ship.
Padron Social Marketing shares the behind the scenes promotion for a client at a recent event.
#MPWR Skincare posted a picture of teens testing the product at a recent expo.
Jenny Krauss Handmade’s team spots a few products at a local boutique and snaps a pic.
File those ideas under inspiration!
Your team also is in the thick of internal content. Showcasing your company’s content, industry related content and recent news are great areas of focus.
Sharing your company’s content across broader channels positions your brand as the expert and shares a bit about what the brand is up to.
Posting content related to your industry shows that your brand is on top of trends and making an impact of their own.
Adding perspective to recent news is a great way to position your brand and how it fits into your industry.
- Collaboration: New research finds that Millennials crave collaboration, team-based work projects and an unstructured flow of information at all levels (source: Kenan Flager UNC). Employees often are looking for special projects that will highlight their commitment to the brand and that can also serve as a way to showcase their skillset. Employees hope that if they do this special project and work collaboratively they will be recognized for it. By dividing the workload amongst several employees this project will be team based and will provide an interesting workflow throughout the day. It will also allow for various levels of employees to interact in a collaborative manner with each other.
- Analysis: Drinking a cup of coffee and reading spreadsheets in the morning might not be what your team is looking to do but it’s really important to understand what works. Knowing what works gives a game plan and confidence in knowing that each piece of posted content is going to perform well and meet overall company goals.
There are several analytics platforms available for teams to use: LiftMetrix, Sprout Social, Sumall, Nuvi and Curalate. Our company uses LiftMetrix and chose the platform because it is easy to read, it calculates ROI based on given business objectives and it makes recommendations on what to do next to maximize activity.
Allowing transparency in the reporting process will allow for your team to understand what works and what to do more of. It will also help them understand what isn’t working.
Most of these analytics platforms report on several data points. Choose a couple of data points that are most relevant to your company goals and keep your team informed of how their efforts are impacting the goals.
For beginner teams, it may be important to look at basic data points to see if the content will move the numbers. Basic data points may include things like engagement increases, audience increases and click-throughs.
For intermediate and advanced team, it may be important to look at goal specific data points such as content categories that drive purchase behavior, types of images that drive email opt ins or reviewing how your content is performing compared to a competitor’s content.
- Encouragement: Analytics will provide hard numbers for you and your team may enjoy seeing the increases. It’s also important to highlight your team or individual member’s successes. The Department of Labor states that lack of appreciation is the number one reason people leaving their job. The same concept applies to leaving teams. When people feel appreciated, they tend to remain part of that team. Praising your team should be sincere, frequent and straightforward.
- Accountability: Although a free flowing project may be a starting point, it is wise to add accountability elements. Specific teams can be responsible for branded hashtags, internal goals and live events.
Here’s how that might look.
- Team A can be responsible for driving engagement to a branded hashtag.
- Team B can be responsible for posting about your company’s free product trial.
- Team C can be responsible for showcasing and promoting next quarter’s live event.
Once teams have their specific goals. Add those to the analytics section to be sure that the content posted is funneling into the overall goal.
In conclusion, social media marketing doesn’t have a hard rule that says one person must handle it all. In fact, many top performing social media pages have a team behind them with a united vision of moving the brand forward. Take this article as a time to consider shifting social media responsibility to a team of people around you.