by Larissa Newton
Andy Swindler, president, and John Armstrong, account director, of Astek Consulting LLC, taught attendees how organization is the formula for social media alchemy during their lunchtime session.
Before all else, they said, you need to build your channel strategy specific to the social media platform you’ll be using.
“The way you use Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn are very, very different,” Armstrong explained. “Not only are different people on LinkedIn that are on Facebook, but they have different intent, they have different needs, they consume differently.”
Swindler agreed.
“There are many different channels, many different programs,” he said. “They should be looked at individually and strategically.”
Most importantly, they said you should stay organized with an editorial calendar built for social media. Not only will it organize your resources, it will help create consistency in how often you post.
“You don’t want to just post content when you have it,” Armstrong said. If you only post sporadically, “then you’ve reduced the expectations of your audience and it becomes very choppy in how they consume your content.”
In addition to consistency, Swindler said an editorial calendar could give you a broader view of your marketing strategy and even help you generate ideas. If you can see how everything is related, you may get inspired.
“Social media is at its best when it’s combined and correlated with other marketing channels,” he said.
Finally, an editorial calendar should contain metrics — like those from Google Analytics — which can allow you to ascertain whether you are getting results for your time investment.
“Ideally, everything should have a goal, and a measurable goal,” Swindler said.
Armstrong added, “Social media isn’t worth anything unless you are tracking it.”
Social media isn’t all business, though. Swindler and Armstrong encouraged making your posts relevant and educational, but also compelling and entertaining.
Armstrong said clients often forget the last two, which can inhibit audience engagement.
“Any social media strategy that doesn’t have some sort of entertainment needs to be reconsidered.”