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Emily Nash

By: Emily Nash on August 2nd, 2017

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The Anatomy of a Winning Social Media Content Marketing Plan

Content, Social & Digital Marketing | Marketing Automation | social media

mailto:demo@example.com?Subject=HighRoad Solutions - interesting article

At the end of this blog you’ll walk away with the complete anatomy of what it takes to engage, share, and convert with a social media marketing plan. With any good social media strategy, there is a great content strategy behind it. So first, let’s consider what kind of new and fresh content you are creating on a regular basis. Usually the content is a blog - like this one! Another great initiative would be to create video on member testimonials for example. Then, create a blog based off that video, consider cutting the video into bite-size consumable pieces for social media sharing, and include the video on your YouTube channel and website homepage.

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It is worth brainstorming out a plan for your content strategy. Consider what you are going to cover in your blog from week to week. The pace you set should be decided ahead as well. For some organizations once a week is the right amount; considering production, drafting, editing, and posting. For others, twice a month will suffice. Business to business blogging or articles written from an association may equate to fewer quality articles over a given time. Organizations like HighRoad tend to publish something everyday. It depends on how much research, and effort goes into each article in deciding how often to publish. Also, consider buckets or categories of blogs. For evergreen content or content that is always relevant, consider adding in a thought leadership type article category that covers topics going on in the association’s industry, for example. At the end of every blog, be sure to include a call-to-action. This is something relevant to the blog at hand, but also drives the reader - who is already engaged - to take a desired next action towards conversion.

Now that you have a blog or video (or both!) distribute the content across your social media channels. For the association, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Reddit may be the best places to post. On a side note, LinkedIn just released the ability to add video to their posts - proving that video content is only getting stronger. Twitter is a great place to engage and continuously post. You may have not had Reddit at top of mind, but I’m talking about the subreddits that may apply to the niche industries of associations. It’s something worth considering. Read this article on the demographics of Reddit (young, male, and digital) and determine if it may be the audience for you.

Now for the cadence, the half-life of a social media post is real. That’s why posting an article just once is missing out on opportunities for traffic, leads, and conversions. If you’re creating content on a regularly basis - say weekly - then post once or twice a week to LinkedIn. Maybe choose a publishing day for new content, and then post once more with recycled content from another week - or post something someone else read to establish thought leadership. Next, consider posting to Twitter several times a day. Use social media automation tools such as HubSpot, Hoot Suite, or Sprout Social to schedule out ahead of time. Alternate between new, recycled, and industry articles to share. Aim for each post to include a snippet of text or title of the article, a bit.ly link, and an image, also try to include any handles of people or organizations mentioned, for optimal engagement.

The idea is to create a mix of content that is both your own and a curation of what you are seeing across the web that is relevant to your audience. A good rule of thumb is a 50/50 ratio of produced content and shared content. The longer and more consistent you run this type of program, the greater your followers and audience will grow. Using marketing automation and trackable calls-to-action takes this program up another notch for identifying engaged users. A good social media content strategy takes consistent, persistence and dedication. Implement this sort of strategic content strategy and you will begin to see results.

Now that you know how to set up a winning social media content strategy, you're going to want to download our Toolkit on the Content Marketing Plan Methodology.  

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About Emily Nash

With a unique background in start-ups-to-studios, and consulting-to-corporate settings, Emily specializes in solving for unknowns, pioneering new services, and collaborating with marketers and strategists. In her community, she served on the board of American Institute for Graphic Arts as their Communications Director to help promote networking and mentorship opportunities for area designers and creatives. She’s also a co-producer for Rethink Association, a podcast for associations.