Posted by Social media has quite a life story.
Who knew it would take off from the Beverly Hills paparazzi days to the marketing messiah that it is today?
While the way we use social media platforms today has pivoted considerably from the past, the constant and increased demand for high-quality content can often leave even the most experienced social media teams scrambling to manage it all.
Fear not. We’ve assembled some of the most sticky social media challenges and oh so kindly are giving you the inside scoop on how to combat them and incorporate them into your social media plan.
How do I create a social media plan?
Before we take the plunge, it’s important that you have a solid framework in place for a social media plan. It’s your first line of defence against the challenges we will cover shortly.
Assuming you’ve already got your account name, product/persona, and niche ducks in a row, here’s a quick checklist for what your social media plan should include:
- A defined list of goals and objectives
- A survey of your existing social media presence
- Competitive analysis of similar accounts
- A basic outline of your social media content strategy
- A social media calendar
- Chosen methods for measuring and analyzing performance
What does social media management look like?
Whether you have a personal account and your goal is to be a recognized influencer within a niche community, or you run a professional account with conversion goals, you certainly have a lot to balance.
So what exactly does social media management involve? In a nutshell, it’s anything related to your social media efforts:
- Building any of the items from the list above
- Monitoring online conversations and communicating with followers
- Syncing with graphic designers and other content creators
- A/B testing and another performance measurement
- Collaborating to get the perfect message across
It’s a lot of work, but it can really pay off to do a great job! According to a survey conducted by Facebook for Business, 83% of people use Instagram to discover new services and products. What’s more, 87% said they took specific action, such as making a purchase, after they saw product information.
While we can’t promise a solution for every individual’s unique needs, we think we’ve covered some of the most irksome challenges you might have come across in the social media realm, and remedies to match.
3 social media challenges–and solutions!
Challenge #1: Aligning designers, copywriters and more with your schedule
Once you’ve done the necessary evil of planning a social media schedule for a week, a month or even a full campaign, your next move is to contact the relevant designers and copywriters.
Keeping everyone up to date is tricky, especially because it usually requires multiple communication channels, differences in priorities across teams, file sharing, and more.
It can be difficult to feel confident that you have the most recent version of an asset, or that a copywriter will meet a deadline.
Solution: Create a social media planner built for 2021
Create a monthly schedule that will be shared with all stakeholders. We recommend you use a flexible and dynamic tool that doesn’t restrict you, so you can add all owners, track statuses, share files and communicate in context in real-time!
As the manager of the calendar, you should customize it so it’s a living workflow, even getting into the micro details like number of posts, captions and publishing dates. With one source of truth for everyone in your social media process, there will be fewer headaches ahead.
Challenge #2: You can’t stay on top of your campaigns, ideas, and requests
If you have the privilege of working with creative minds, or maybe you are serving a lot of clients, you’ve seen first-hand how many ideas can be thrown at you.
Not only is it easy to lose track of them all, but you also probably need to organize them according to different priorities. Otherwise, you’ll never be able to get going on a campaign.
Solution: Create a form to track and save ideas for later
Prioritizing campaign requests and ideas could entail anything from subject matter, request date, which account is requesting it, and more. The best way to get ahead of it all is to create a funnel to capture all of this information.
Once captured, it will be much easier to sort requests according to these criteria. And hey, it will save you time in chasing down requesters for those details, so you can make swifter decisions on which ideas are worth pushing into production.
If you choose to use a Work OS, you can create a dynamic request form that then populates an existing workflow. You can even assess the most-requested types of content requests by creating a dashboard from this data. Better still, automations can speed up the approval process so these items go directly into the workflow for your teams.
What is a Work OS?
A Work OS (Work Operating System) is a software category on the rise. As a digital cloud-based workspace, it enables teams to plan, execute, and manage all processes, from day-to-day task management to organization-wide projects.
The best Work OS systems are geared for organizations of all sizes and across all functions, so they can be a vehicle for building any workflow, project or process, OR be adapted to meet the needs of existing ones—including a social media team!
Challenge #3: In the age of COVID-19, you’re not sure how to adjust your social strategy
Impossible as it may seem, COVID-19 crashed onto the scene over one year ago and for obvious reasons, organizations were forced to shift. For most teams (social media included), it requires a complete rework of their branding messages.
Wall Street suffered its worst quarter since 2008, and with continued concern over job markets decline, advertising and marketing departments are charged with reading the room to see how to best connect with customers.
Solution: Dive deeper into your brand voice and language
Copywriters, designers, and even company leadership should be united on the brand voice that is reflected in all creative assets.
It’s no surprise that since March 2020, online traffic in the U.S. has increased enormously. More interestingly, online gaming traffic is the number one category to have increased—by a whopping 75%.
In addition to online traffic, businesses must also take into consideration the increased financial, emotional, and medical concerns that most individuals are facing in this time.
These kinds of insights are crucial for your social media team and beyond, as you take into consideration your audience and their activities and interests when crafting your messaging. They can have a massive impact on the public’s perception of an organization and its values.
Taming the beast
As the world continues to change, new social media practices and considerations will come into play. In addition to doing some homework on your social media plan, it’s essential to use tools and systems that allow you to manage these challenges in a way that works for your team.
That being said, maintaining alignment across teams, staying on top of requests, and making intentional messaging choices will always be at the top of the list, so it’s important to bolster these efforts from the get-go.
With Crowdfire, you can find curated content, schedule your posts, engage with your audience, deep-dive into analytics and create custom reports. Now introducing Social listening. Try it for free.