I spend my life thinking about content, what activities generate good content and what can ultimately make that content intrinsically social.
This week I’ve discovered that although many professional communicators also consider social media on a regular basis, it’s often just an afterthought or a ‘product’ of another activity. I’ve recently challenged a manager to look at a communications strategy back-to-front in order that good quality content can be a reliable output of the projects.
Ultimately the aim of this strategy is to capture and engage with an audience for a business benefit; but social will only work well if it is seen as a facilitator or toolkit for getting the right content in front of this audience. It is a means to an end – not a success factor in it’s own right.
Too regularly I see ‘Use Twitter’ stuck into a comms plan as an outright action, without the necessary content planning to capture attention and ultimately to secure long-term engagement with your company or brand.
Here are the five questions I asked to help the thought process:
1) Which social platforms does your target audience currently use?
2) What content are they currently choosing to engage with?
3) How will we position ourselves – what can we create which will fill a gap, raise a standard, or add value to our target audience?
4) Once we exist within this space, what will success look like?
I direct lots of people to this Mashable article on social content planning, although it’s a 2011 piece it focuses on how to use content to build relationships and communities and seems to resonate with comms, PR and marketing managers irrespective of industry sector.
Ultimately, I’d like to stop hearing the comms industry say “we should do some social media”, and start hearing more words like “engagement” and “relationship” in measurement meetings. At what point in your comms plan will social content feature? Is social content an increasing driver for your company?
social resolution 