Strategies for Stepping Up Your Social Media Game
There are many benefits to increasing your social media following and the engagement on your posts to allow your agency to more fully connect with your target audiences. The social media space is where many conversations are happening, and leading that conversation for your agency can ensure your audiences have the right information, understand what you do, and see you as a part of the community.
Choose the Right Platforms for Your Needs
There are many social media platforms out there, and it’s important to use the right one to fit your specific needs. Below is a list of the top five social media platforms and their benefits.
Facebook
Great for: planning and hosting events, live interaction, engaging with older audiences
Advanced tip: Videos get more engagement than static images, and live streams get six times more engagement than regular videos. Share some “behind-the-scenes” or “your tax dollars at work” type content to resonate with audiences.
Instagram
Great for: in-the-moment stories, live interaction (IG TV), multilingual audiences
Advanced tip: Use a tool such as LinkTree in the bio so you can put clickable links on your posts, making it easier for audiences to click through to your website.
Twitter
Great for: immediate alerts, re-sharing news, generating website traffic
Advanced tip: Tweets with hashtags garner 100% more engagement, but be sure to only use one or two to avoid diluting your message.
YouTube
Great for: sharing longer videos, curating content into channels
Advanced tip: Be strategic about both your channel and video descriptions – keywords, hashtags, useful links and timestamps can all be helpful in getting your video seen and getting click throughs to your website.
LinkedIn
Great for: agency announcements, acknowledging staff achievements, posting white papers
Advanced tip: Ask your employees to like, share, and otherwise amplify your content – the more engagement, the more reach.
Have a Plan, Stay Flexible
Develop a Plan
Planning your social media content in advance allows you to develop more engaging content and ensure your messaging in the social sphere is consistent with your overall communications. Building an editorial calendar for the year, and then month by month, can help you plan out your content in a thoughtful way, and increase efficiencies.
Stay Flexible
Social media is also about being in the moment, so while planning is key, so is staying flexible and being ready to post content as new events arise. Be on the lookout for partner content the resonates with your message, and boost their content on your channels. This can increase your own following and build reciprocity with other organizations. You should also have plans in place and protocols for drafting content on the fly, as news or events happen at your agency, in order to get that content out quickly on your channels.
Establish Protocols
Social media protocols in general are a must-have and ensure you are able to stay on top of what is happening on your channels. These protocols should include roles and responsibilities, the types of content to post on various channels, how approvals work, and who and how to respond to comments that arise online, especially negative comments. Dealing with online trolls can be a pain, but with plans in place ahead of time for how to respond, you can nip this issue in the bud quickly and ensure your messaging stays consistent.
Utilize Tools
There are many tools available to help you manage your social channels in a combined, efficient way. These include platforms such as Hootsuite, Sprout, Pexel, and Buffer. Features such as assigning tasks, scheduling posts, and shared social inboxes allow everyone on your team to easily see what is happening across channels and manage content and conversations in a proactive way.
Reflect, Analyze, and Improve
Being flexible is key to effectively managing social media, and part of that includes regular reporting to evaluate how audiences are engaging with your content. These reports should include key performance indicators (KPIs) such as comments, engagement, and website traffic, and should be tracked over time to see if your following and engagement is increasing, and how the tenor of social conversations are changing. Use these insights to continually adjust your social media content and practices to ensure you are getting the most out of your efforts and keeping your social media reputation strong.