Social media marketing – how hard can it be and can a social media agency help your brand? A Facebook post here, a tweet there; is it really necessary to have an entire strategy? Yes, yes, yes and before you start to have doubts or think that a weekly update of all channels is enough to entertain your followers we’ll throw in an additional ‘yes’ to try and convince you otherwise.

Social media is an excellent marketing platform when used correctly, but all too often companies implement a rushed and poorly though out social plan. This can lead to a catalogue of branding errors and tone of voice mistakes – so how can a social media agency help your brand to stay on the right road?

Behind The Scenes: Strategising and Continuous Graft

An effective social media strategy doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, if you wake up and make a post on a whim there’s a high chance it will not be monitored or help achieve you end goal – be it to increase followers or drive people to a specific landing page.

Plenty of work is needed behind the scenes to ensure your social strategy is professional, well-timed, well-structured and represents your company in the best light – and that’s where a social media marketing agency can help. Professionals like the team at Contentworks are slick at:

Strategising and planning

What do you want to achieve? What are your social media KPIs? What’s your target audience? Do you have a specific project in mind? What’s the timescale for this project? What platforms do you want to target? Why do you want to target those platforms? How will specific engagement benefit your company? Should you update your accounts at a specific time? Strategising is all about thinking ahead and developing a detailed plan.

Creating promotional content

With 91% of retail brands using two or more social media channels, it’s really important to create promotional content that will stand out from the crowd. Video is the content trend of the moment with over 8 billion videos watched on Facebook every day, so it makes sense to focus on visual content that can be easily shared. Of course, this needs to also be on brand so an agency can help with branded content ideas, themes and producing video scripts with the correct tone of voice.

Owning the Stage: Captivating and Engaging Followers

Beavering away behind the scenes is one thing but there also needs to be regular engagement with followers. Social media marketing agencies can help with:

Timely content

When it comes to marketing, it’s important to get your timing right. If your target audience is most active on Facebook from 7-9 at night, pushing content at 8 in the morning is likely to generate a lower response than if you made a post at 8pm. Similarly, if you’re targeting a younger demographic you may want to utilise sites such as Twitter which is favoured by a more youthful generation. An agency can help identify who you should target and when.

Engagement

Setting up multiple social media channels might seem like a good idea or ‘the thing’ to do – but what happens when you run out of time to interact and engage? Social fans are impatient and will expect regular updates, information and an almost continuous communication stream, so it’s important to stay on the ball and entertain your social community as much as possible. Don’t have the time to spark crypto chat on Telegram or generate buzz around a newly produced video on Facebook? Then leave it to the experts.

Compliance

Keeping followers happy is one thing, but obeying strict rules and regulations must always be at the forefront of marketing activity – particularly if you work in the finance industry or another sector that’s heavily governed. Agencies well clued up on the latest laws can help create content that’s not only legal but also well-monitored to avoid a potential social PR backlash. Even the smallest mishap can be bad for business and therefore compliance should never be taken lightly.

Round of Applause: Reaping the Rewards

Social media is no longer just about posting pictures of your cat in a lion outfit, no matter how fun this might be. With the right strategy you can reap serious business rewards. Monitoring and tracking your performance is crucial. It will let you know what you’re doing right, what you need to tweak or change and how much money you should set aside for your social marketing budget depending on ROI.  If you struggle to analse data or need a helping hand putting a well-structured social media strategy in place, seeking the help of an agency is wise.

Of course, the outcome of a social strategy will make so much more sense if you have an intelligent and well thought out plan to start with which is why social media marketing is very much a process and not a job that can be pushed aside or rushed.

Contact Contentworks for help with your social and content marketing strategy today.