Three Cs + Flexibility = Successful Social Strategy

By Kaitlyn Viater, Social Media Strategist at Linhart Public Relations and
CWCC Member

Social media continues to evolve with fresh functionality, updated analytics, and new ways to connect with friends, family and brands. It can be challenging to keep up with the ever-changing landscape and what may work one day, doesn’t work the next. So how can you develop a successful social strategy for your organization no matter the changes, channel and community? In addition to trial and error, there are three tactics I believe work for all channels: consistency, creativity and community.

Consistency
Frequency matters, for both the user experience and the algorithms that determine what users see online. In a nutshell: Increased activity will increase results. Posting consistent content will better ensure your posts are being seen, thereby giving fans more opportunities to be exposed to your organization. Additionally, it allows you to share your perspectives or share other meaningful information in more ways and more often. Telling and building a brand story through your content provides a complete picture of who you are and what you do.

Creative/Compelling Content
Content creation may be the most difficult part of social media, but it is also among the most important. Creating interesting and original posts that your customers want to read is key to connecting with and creating brand advocates. A good gut check for your content is yourself. Social content should be something you would want to read and share with your friends and family. If not, why would others want to like it, tweet it or pin it? Compelling content will allow you to capture customers’ attention and expose audiences to your brand and products or services. Creative content will differentiate you and give fans a reason to follow your page and engage with your brand.

Community
Knowing and understanding your community will allow you to best connect and communicate with them. Building an audience takes time and continual effort. Using a variety of organic and paid tactics (personal engagement, targeted campaigns, online advertising, etc.) to continually grow your audience and engage key demographics will help maintain a strong community. Once you learn what resonates with your fan base, continue to utilize and optimize those tactics to keep their interests’ piqued.

In addition to these three Cs, being flexible and understanding some things will work and some things will fail will allow the best (and most sane) social media strategy. Tapping into internal resources that are creative, communicating with your fan base, and continuing to learn and grow with social media channels will contribute to a successful strategy.

Can you guess how many words begin with the letter “C” in this blog post?

 
About Kaitlyn Viater
After years in New York City’s fast-paced, high energy, and ever-changing digital industry, Kaitlyn made the transition from the concrete jungle to the mile high city. As the digital strategist at Linhart PR, Kaitlyn focuses on helping clients enhance their online presence through social media, website best practices, email marketing, and more. From social media strategy and activation to community/channel development and management to content creation, Linhart PR shares their digital know-how to build online programs that forge meaningful interactions with target audiences.