Social media is more popular than ever, playing a major role in the top news stories of 2016, from international sporting events to US politics. Tweets about the Rio Olympics generated 75 billion impressions. Instagram reached 600 million users. Facebook saw a staggering 1.79 billion monthly active users. Despite these numbers, many brands have seen organic reach and impressions plummet in 2016. Facebook is all but entirely pay-to-play for brands, with Twitter and Instagram not far behind. What does this mean for you? Marketers and communicators must be even more strategic and targeted with social media efforts in 2017 or risk being forever drowned out in the noise.
Next time you find yourself with a few extra minutes to spare, answer the following questions to help guide and strengthen your social media efforts in 2017.
Content
1. Is your content engaging?
2. Are you targeting the right audience with your content?
Engagement powers social media. If your brand isn’t generating engagement of any kind (or very little), re-think the types of content you’re sharing. Are you sharing images with your posts? Are you sharing only links? Vary your approach to find what content types are most engaging with your audience.
Audience
1. Is your audience active?
2. Has your audience grown? Declined?
Audience activity goes hand-in-hand with engagement. If no one is interacting with your content on social media, it could also be an indicator of a misaligned audience. Imagine your target audience is c-suite or upper management of tech companies, but your content focuses on tips and tricks for developers or engineers. You’ll likely garner a lot of conversation and engagement from engineers, but not so much from the c-suite.
Resources
1. Are your efforts delivering bottom-line results?
2. Are you spending enough/too much time managing your social media accounts?
What business results are you generating from your social media efforts? The answer to this question may not always be hard dollars and cents, depending on the goal of your social media program. Compare the resources spent (time and monetary) to the return.
Tori Sabourin
Senior Marketing Analyst
Need help finding the perfect audience or developing a well-crafted social media strategy for your business or brand? We can help!
[cta]
The post A Marketer’s Rainy Day: Social Media Efforts Checklist appeared first on SHIFT Communications PR Agency - Boston | New York | San Francisco | Austin.