According to loomly.com, A social media workflow is a proven system that allows your team to consistently and efficiently schedule error-free social media posts in a timely manner.
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A workflow defines people’s roles throughout the social media publishing process and implements repeatable steps and deadlines for each editorial period.
You may be wondering, what are the hot cake strategies for creating a social media workflow in 2023? The following are hot cake tips for creating social media workflow:
Establish the roles and responsibilities
The first step in creating a social media workflow is to establish who will be involved and what their roles and responsibilities will be. This will help you ensure that everyone is on the same page and knows their role and contributions in the process.
Here are a few roles that can work together in social media management:
- Social media manager: Social media managers are responsible for managing the day-to-day activities of social media channels, creating effective social media strategies, and ensuring a smooth social media workflow for the team. This can include tasks such as publishing content, responding to comments, and monitoring analytics (though, again, this depends greatly on the organization).
- Content creator: This role is for those who help turn content ideas to life and create content for marketing teams. It doesn’t have to be limited to social media content specifically, as they can also repurpose other content, such as blog posts for social media. One example would be splitting a blog post into bite-sized pieces for Instagram stories.
- Community manager: A community manager is in charge of community building. They do so by moderating social media accounts, helping create a strong social media presence, and engaging with the community. They are responsible for building rapport with the audience across multiple platforms, responding to comments and messages, monitoring for negative sentiment, and answering questions, all while using the brand’s voice
- Designer: Designers create visual content for social posts and may also be involved in filming and editing videos. For greater efficiency, a designer must be in-sync with the copywriter and content creator, and in most organizations, these two roles are highly symbiotic
- Analyst: The analyst is responsible for analyzing the performance of each social media campaign and marketing efforts. This includes tasks such as tracking metrics, conducting research, providing your team with key data, and writing reports.
Not all of these roles will be relevant for every business, so you’ll need to tailor your team to fit your specific needs. Once you’ve established who will be involved, it’s time to start creating your social media content workflow.
Make Future Plans
The next best practice involves planning. You should have initial ideas on what kind of content you want to post and know when to post them in a timely manner. This will help you stay organized, on track, and prepared.
We’ll dig into this later in the article, so for now, here are a few tips for creating a content calendar:
- Start by brainstorming social media content ideas. This may include blog posts, images, infographics, or videos
- Once you have some ideas, start determining the timeline and plan when you want to publish them. Consider things like the news cycle, holidays, and other events that could impact your content
- Once you have a plan, you may begin to assign tasks to create content and schedule social media posts in your social media calendar and other visual content. This may include writing blog posts, designing visuals for different social platforms, or filming videos
- Be sure to leave some flexibility in your calendar. Things change, and you may need to adjust your plans. It’s always a good idea to leave some wiggle room for some events you weren’t aware of. Say it’s August 7th, and you find out August 8th is International Cat Day, but the calendar is filled with branded posts. You really don’t want to be that person who has to jump through hoops to squeeze some cute cat pics between branded posts, right?
Wrap Your WorkFlow With Social Strategies
Social media strategies are created around a team’s workflow and not the other way around. Basically, you need to consider logistical aspects such as content creation, distribution, and monitoring before sketching a strategy.
The reason is quite simple by doing this, you’ll be able to create a strategy that is tailored to your team’s needs, strengths, and limitations.
Now, as for some general tips for creating a social media strategy around your workflow, here’s what you should keep in mind:
- Define your goals: What do you want to achieve with your social media strategy?
- Research your audience: Who are you trying to reach with your strategy?
- Choose the right platforms: Which social media channels should you focus on, and how will you use each of them for social campaigns?
- Create engaging content: What kind of content will resonate with your audience, and how will you create posts?
- Plan your distribution: How will you get your social media content in front of your audience?
- Monitor and adjust.: How will you track and measure the success of your social media marketing campaigns?
For a good starting point, the image below shows some of the questions you could ask yourself when developing your social media strategy:
Study Your Social Platforms
When it comes to social media, there are a lot of different platforms to choose from. Each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses, so before you start creating your social media content, you need to choose the right platform for your strategy.
Here are a few things to consider when choosing a social media platform:
- Goals: What do you want to achieve with your social media strategy? Conversions? Brand awareness? Lead generation? For example, if you’re aiming to increase conversions, Twitter might not be the right platform. Or it might be, depending on who you ask.
- Audience: Who are you trying to reach with your social media strategy? Does your target audience hang out on Twitter or LinkedIn? Or maybe Reddit?
- Content: What kind of content will resonate with your audience? Infographics? White-papers? Blog posts? Infographics, white papers, and blog posts are shared as Instagram Stories
Engage In Post Scheduling
And now we get to one of the best parts of our blog *look ahead and notice that there’s more than half an article to go* – social media publishing logistics!
One could say that scheduling posts are one of the pillars of a sturdy social media workflow, and for good reason. The most obvious one is that, by doing this, you’ll be able to ensure that your content is consistent and published regularly. It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
Now, while some platforms support content-scheduling natively, there is a strong case to be made for using a dedicated social media management tool like Planable. That’s because a scheduling tool allows you to schedule posts for all of your pages in one place instead of logging into each platform and doing this manually.
Trust The Approval Process
It’s important to have an approval process in place within your social media workflow. This is especially true if you’re working with a team. By having a consistent approval workflow, you’ll be able to ensure that all of your content is high-quality and on brand.
There are a few things to consider when creating an approval process:
- Who should be involved?
- At what point should the approval process take place?
- How will the approval process help you achieve your goals?
Who should be involved in the approval process?
The answer to this question will vary depending on your team and your goals. However, there are a few key people who should always be involved:
- Content creator/copywriter: Obvious, right? This person should be involved in the approval process to ensure that their content meets all of the requirements.
- A subject matter expert: To provide feedback on the accuracy of the content. Especially useful in sensitive and high-stakes campaigns or when there’s lots of content that need to be pushed and needs in-depth proofreading
- A copy editor: Ensures that content is error-free and, in some cases, on brand
- The final decision maker (approver): The person who ensures the content meets company policy and gives the stamp of approval on the content
Establish Straightforward Guidelines
Regarding social media, it’s important to have clear posting guidelines. This is especially true if you’re working with a team. By having posting guidelines, you’ll be able to ensure that all of your content is high-quality, meets company policy, and exemplifies the brand’s tone.
Some things to consider when creating posting guidelines:
- What voice/tone should be used?
- What topics should be covered?
- What types of content should be posted?
- How often should content be published?
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