You’ve done some social listening, created a social media plan, built a persona for your brand; now it’s time to take all these steps and implement them. Don’t just open up these accounts and start posting away. You will end up losing track of what you are talking about, and where you are talking about certain things. You may just flat out post stuff that is completely unimportant or irrelevant to your organization. This is where a content calendar comes in handy. These can be created in Microsoft Excel or in a Google Sheet. But wait, what’s a content calendar? It is a document that outlines when you are posting a certain social media post, which platform you are posting it to, and which of your goals it pertains to. Now, if you’re like most people, you may be going “eww, Excel” (not me, I love it.) Have no fear, there are social media marketing sites, such as hootsuite.com, that can help you create these calendars in a very simple way. Hootsuite also provides the fantastic option to schedule posts in advance, so you worry less and post more! With sites like these, you can schedule your posts to go out on more than one of your chosen social media platforms at the same time. It also provides an option to view any and all feedback you are receiving on these separate platforms all in one convenient location. These would be things like direct messages, comments, number of likes, etc.
This brings us to our next point; engaging! You’re going to want to dedicate one person to doing this all day long (you may need to establish a team when your organization grows). We highly recommend that you have alerts for notifications on for all of your platforms. According to Sprout Social, 40% of consumers expect a brand to respond within one hour and 79% expect a response within 24 hours. By designating one person to watch your social media accounts frequently, you are able to respond quickly to questions or concerns brought forward by those following your social media pages. You can also engage in positive ways with your consumers, such as adding jokes or quirky remarks to their pleasant comments. Make sure all responses are individualised and not just generic answers given on all comments posted on your social media threads. This next point is incredibly important: positive and negative feedback should be addressed; every single detail helps expand and adjust your social media efforts. If you’re trying to boost engagement in your social media platforms by using trending hashtags, be very careful to read about the cause or issues the hashtag is addressing before using it! Don’t be this guy from DiGiorno Pizza! Research should be at the top of your radar at all times.
Be prepared for conflict, backlash or even organization crisis. Have a plan in place to address these difficult steps in your social media efforts. Your organization may be a food provider and have to make an immediate recall of your product through all your social media platforms. There will be negative feedback that follows this. Just be prepared, deal with all the comments in a cool and collected manner, and you will come out of this looking better than before. Sometimes, there is just nothing you can do to prevent negative feedback. You may own a petting zoo or an aquatic live gallery. People that strongly advocate against animals in captivity will try really hard to make your organization look like the villain. In this case, you will have to try really hard to either discredit the claims with hard proof, or agree that you are wrong, apologise and correct the issue if necessary. Having a well organized crisis plan can really save you from a major PR headache!
Last but not least, the average person looks at their personal social media pages approximately 2.5 hours a day. This doesn’t even include what they are digesting from your organization’s social media pages. Eventually their brain will go through social fatigue. People will get bored or annoyed with the content they are seeing day in, day out. This is why keeping your posts fresh and different helps further distinguish your organization from others.
Make sure your posts are error free, unless you're intending to use errors to be humorous (like puns, or silly jokes). Listen to your audience and engage whenever you can but be careful not to burn yourself out in the process. And voila! You officially have the tools necessary to properly organize and run your social media platforms to better benefit your organization!
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