Social Media Strategy - Simplified

You can't bank on a social post going viral. I've outlined the basic steps you need to take to garner a select and targeted audience.

This is the third of three chapters that I contributed to the book The Content Entrepreneur by Joe Pulizzi and Friends. It was an honor to be part of this amazing collection of expert content creators. All the ideas in these three chapters are applicable to content and brand marketers as well as content entrepreneurs.

In this chapter, which led off an entire section on Social Media in the book, the goal was to outline a strategy for you to follow that is both realistic and results-oriented. Would love to know your feedback! Subsequent chapters dug in deeper.

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In baseball, coaches look for ways to advance the runner—usually with singles and doubles. Sports pundits actually call it ABC Baseball. It’s certainly not as dramatic as a giant home run. But it’s executing on the fundamentals of baseball that is most effective.

So too with social media. It is great to dream that a tweet or post will go viral, amassing thousands of followers. But it’s more than likely you will earn a handful at a time, and that’s fine. Slow and steady wins the race—as well as a select and targeted audience.

Gear your social media strategy to earning those singles and doubles. Release a consistent mix of content that satisfies your audience, sending the content right into the channel where your audience is most active.

Build out a strategy once your have done an honest assessment of five key things

• Where Your Audience Resides

• Content Assessment and Calendar

• Frequency of Updating

• Engagement Type

• Some realistic milestones

Starting off, having an impact is more important than volume. You don’t want to burn out!

1. Where Your Audience Resides

You’ve already pulled together research on the members of your audience. This should show where you are most likely to engage with them. Where are you currently getting a bit of traction—is it with visual elements on TikTok or Instagram? Or is it a combination of text and images on Facebook, LinkedIn, Substack, or X?

You may be a write like me, but still have to embrace video! Video is my best engagement metric, and yet I am daunted by it.

Hair, makeup, script, lighting, camera. Ugh. It does get easier though, I promise!

Avoid the urge to be in several channels. The most successful people focus on mastering one channel first. Then transfer the lessons and skills into a second channel, and so on.

2. Content Assessment and Calendar

What content do you have, and what do you have planned? These two components will help drive a social media publishing schedule. Post something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue:

• Old: Older evergreen content will be fresh to someone—put an older asset into rotation.

• New: Provide a new idea, a new concept, benefits of a new asset.

• Borrowed: Curate ideas from others and “borrow” them. Use them as a point of engagement—“Do you agree, why or why not?”

• Blue: Be provocative—a little on the edge (for your audience, that is—don’t go overboard).

3. Frequency of Updating

Consistency of posting is key. When can people expect to hear from you? You are training them to tune in. Get them invested, and you can’t disappoint. Pick a schedule that makes sense for this stage—can you handle 30 minutes a day? Every other day?

4. Engagement Type

Some people are religious about engaging with their followers. For them, every comment needs acknowledgment. Others will “heart” or “like” the comment and let it go. There is a wide spectrum for finding your comfort zone.

And don’t forget to engage on other people’s sites. Chances are they will follow you in return!

5. Realistic Milestones

Set realistic business goals such as building brand awareness, obtaining followers, and driving engagement. Quantify what success will look like: “Per week, I want 5 new followers/subscribers, 30 likes, and 10 shares.”

A variety of social listening tools can help provide some ideas on how you can measure success.

For specific social media ideas, The Content Entrepreneur by Joe Pulizzi and Friends, has an entire section of the book devoted to it.