How to Create the Perfect Social Media Post

Taking the time and effort to create the perfect social media post has never been more important. All social media platforms are swamped with content – both good and bad. After you’ve taken the time to create great content or curated something to share, you need to present it in the smartest possible way.

“Content is currency — something we trade for our audience’s attention.” Frank Strong

I think that social media is the new television and that you need to be entertaining and informative with your social media. You’ve worked hard to build your content strategy but having a laser beam focus on only your brand doesn’t always build or maintain people’s attention which is as best around seven to ten seconds. The average attention span was twelve seconds in 2000 and was eight seconds in 2012 according to Statistic Brain. Wow, right?

So, what does this mean for today’s social media marketers and professionals? You need to be entertaining and add some fun into your social media content mix. Promoting only your product, book or blog non-stop won’t be interesting to anyone, most likely not even yourself. Keeping your ratio of content at 90 percent other people’s content (OPC) and 10 percent your own content will help you but don’t be too dry or stuffy when you create your editorial calendar.

Tips by social media platform

 Google+:

 

1. Use great images on each post. 800 pixels x 600 pixels or 800 pixels x 1200 pixels look fantastic.
2. Make your posts stand out! — It don’t mean a thing if it don’t have that bling! Use some formatting to give your posts some pizzazz. Give your post a bold title, and use some italics, sprinkle in a few relevant hashtags and voila! Your post is ready to go.
3. Make sure you give credit to the source of the text and photo that you are sharing. Being a good citizen by giving proper credit is very important.

 Pinterest:

 

1. Create niche boards with a tight theme.

2. Add descriptions of 200 characters with keywords to help people find your pins through search.

3.  Create vertical images to maximize your real estate. Pinterest images should be long and narrow to take up the maximum amount of visual space and get noticed! Look at your favorite pins and see what the images have in common so you see what types of images are repinned and shared. I create images that are up to 735 pixels by 1102 pixels. This creates an engaging invitation to repin your pinned article. Edit the pin to add the link in the source. 

Twitter:

1. Write tweets between 120 and 130 characters – leave room for retweets with comments. 2. Tweet links at a slow pace – use Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule your tweet. 3. Use action words in your tweets.

Facebook:

 

1. Post consistently to stay in the News Feed. 2. Add variety to your content by posting photos, videos, and articles. 3. Have fun with your Facebook posts – this is a more personal network so let people get to know you here.

LinkedIn:
1. Be relevant. LinkedIn is the place to show your smarts. I don’t recommend posting quotes as status updates here. I love them on Pinterest and Twitter but I don’t feel they carry enough weight for a LinkedIn update.

2. Be consistent. Post at least one update per day and up to four per day spread out through the day to remain active in the LinkedIn stream.

3. Quality counts. Share your own content as well as the best content in your field of focus. The content that you curate and share reflects your own content and should be strong.

The Golden Rule: Tweet Others The Way You Want To Be Tweeted.

Tweet others the way you wanted to be tweeted. Sounds so simple yet everyday you see things on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ that are perplexing. Being kind to others is so important: in life and on social media. Greet others cordially and you may be blessed with a delightful response. The message that you send is amplified and you do not know who may end up reading your comments or what their frame of mind is while they are reading.

My mom always said “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” This is especially true in social media. Please don’t spout angry paradigms at the masses, no one is interested in reading or retweeting those tweets.

Another word of caution is using sarcasm, which I personally love, but must be used with care as it can be taken incorrectly by the intended receiver of the tweet or someone else who is reading it. I love my sarcastic tweet buddies and created a list called Sardonic Super Pals to honor their fine use of sarcasm however, using caution may be wise. While it may lessen the sarcastic boom of your comment, add something that lets people know that you are joking or being sarcastic. I like to add hashtags so it is fun. When you have an established group of social media friends that are sarcastic amongst themselves, it can be great fun but be aware that each tweet or post goes to all your followers, sometimes their followers and where the tweet stops, nobody knows.

If you are unclear of the intent or meaning of a tweet or post, don’t go off in a huff or respond in anger. Simply ask for clarification. The fragile connection on social media can crumble like a crisp autumn leaf, don’t lose friends over misunderstandings. Sometimes this requires a direct message, phone call or Skype conversation and isn’t a friendship worth that effort? I say, yes!

Be a generous retweeter or sharer of your pals and people that you follow. Take time to occasionally flow through your stream of “All Friends” and give them some RT love. Everyone appreciates it and most reciprocate as well. One of my friends makes it a point to check her new followers tweet stream and RT them right away which is a great way to break the ice and start building a relationship.

Calling out people for what you perceive to be a mistake is obnoxious and rude. There are no steadfast rules for social media, only best practices and guidelines. Be kind to other people and help them if they need it.

Tweet others the way you wanted to be tweeted. Simple and effective.

http://pegfitzpatrick.com/the-golden-rule/ 

Is Social Media Right for Small Businesses?

If you’ve been waiting for the right time to get started with social media for your small business, this is it. Most of the larger social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) have been around for years. It’s no longer a fad or just for teenagers. Small businesses have been watching and waiting to see if social media would work for them or just didn’t have time to try something new.

In this article, I want to share why social media is right for small businesses and how you can get started. 

In the past, you’d need to hire someone to create marketing materials for you, find a public relations person to write a press release for you for big announcements, and maybe an advertising specialist to create ads. While you still need to find these people on occasion, social media can do the job of many of these specialities and reach people in a much more personal way.

 

Diversify your marketing with social media

Social media is a combination of sales, marketing, PR, and advertising for your company. Using online communication methods for your small business can help you grow locally and globally depending on your goals.

“44 percent of local businesses said they depend on social media to generate brand awareness, and 41 percent depend on it to drive revenue.”

In traditional marketing, would you limit yourself to only one marketing outlet? I can’t imagine the answer is yes. Likewise, don’t box yourself into a corner with social media. Spread your wings, try something new and determine what works best for your business.

By mixing social media with online advertising and PR efforts, you will be able to expand your business further than you ever imagined.

If you’re a small, local business, you might want to take out ads in your local Shopper magazine or newspaper to reach your community but you could also connect with them with a Facebook post or ad. If you look around in your shop, the grocery store, and even walking around in your neighborhood, you’ll see many people have their heads down looking at their smartphones.

The bottom line is that people are on social media

You need to reach people where they are spending their time. So, yes, social media can absolutely help small businesses with their marketing, PR, communications, and customer service by actively being a part of the digital landscape.

There’s no one better suited to tell the story of your company and help people who have questions about your business or in your area of expertise.

Using social media can reduce your marketing costs by providing exposure to you from new people who find you through your social media posts.

 

How social media can help small businesses

1. Reach more people
2. Smaller budget than traditional marketing
3. Target local customers
4. Tell your story
5. Highlight your customers
6. Join your community online
7. Support local partners

 

Social media works for local small businesses

Betsy, owner [and my amazing hair stylist] of B & B Style Salon, started posting on Instagram with the goal of sharing her salon and reaching more people. Betsy loves doing wedding parties and posted wedding photos on Instagram. She was contacted by the local newspaper for a featured interview in their annual Bridal Guide which resulted in thousands of dollars of free advertising for her business.

If you’re wondering how they found her, notice the hashtags at the bottom of the above Instagram post. Betsy used #bridalparty, #weddinghair, #weddingmakeup, #keene, and #keenenh which are all searchable in the Instagram app. When the reporter from the Keene Sentinel was looking for information on Keene and weddings, B & B Style Salon’s post popped up. Being strategic with her social media posts helped the right people find her post.

From Postplanner, “As you learn more about how to use social media for your small business, the social sites you should be on will become almost obvious to you.”

If you don’t have a clear understanding about which social networks to be on, here’s how a few of them can work:

• Facebook (be sure to setup the geotargeting)
• Instagram (excellent for small business)
• LinkedIn (like an international Rotary Club!)
• Twitter (listening to the conversations on Twitter will provide valuable insight)

The good news is that you don’t have to jump on all these social media platforms at once. Pick one that seems most likely to be of interest to your current and prospective customers and focus on learning how to use it.

 

Instagram works for small businesses

Instagram is very hot right now with huge grow rates on the platform. If you’re not sure where to start, Instagram might be a good start.


Once you decide which social networks you’ll use — be sure to cross promote that content in your other online marketing and PR pieces also!

http://pegfitzpatrick.com/social-media-small-businesses/ 

8 Tactics I Used To Get My First 1,000 Email Subscribers

So you’re on your computer searching Google, while sipping on your cup of coffee, trying to find ways to build your email list.

After all, you know that if you build your list you will sell more products and finally get your message out into the world.
So you keep searching Google.

But every article you find is giving the same old advice.

You know advice like…

• Start your own blog
• Market on social media
• Add an opt-in form to your blog

Need I say more?
And you can’t help but think.
  
“Wait! Something’s not right, someone has to be hiding the good stuff. You know, the actual steps I should take to even get my offer seen by my audience”

And guess what, you’re right!

Not that there’s some secret blogging society or anything.

But most list building advice is usually very obvious and repetitive.
And quite frankly you’re probably tired of hearing the same old vague list building strategies.

Even more importantly you want tactics that have been tried and proven to work.

But most articles cover up what it really takes to build your list. For a few reasons but the main reason being, they think you’re scared of a little hard work, to get the results.

But I know better.

I know you’re a hard worker who’s willing to put in the labor once you know exactly what you need to do.

So why wait any longer.
Let’s Jump In!

1) Create an irresistible bait

In order to grow your list filled with highly targeted people, you must find out more about who they are and what they want most.

What is it that’s keeping them up until 3 am and how can your offer be that solution. Your offer should tap into your ideal customers overall aspirations for themselves.

Having the right bait is critical because you can have all the traffic in the world but if your offer is not the right bait you will miss out on getting a ton of new subscribers to your list.

2) Capture your audience attention

No matter how much traffic you get or how great your post or newsletter is, if you can’t get your audience to take notice than the content inside is practically useless because no one will read it.

Nowadays people are being too consumed with marketing ads and content.

So you must write headlines that will capture your audience attention to want to read more.

And if your headline can’t stop them in they’re tracks the odds of them reading your content is slim to none.

4 tips to write killer headlines

Write in List Format
Example: 16 unethical life hacks you won’t learn in school!
Write Great How To Formats
Example: How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise and Get Paid to Change the World
Add 1-2 Power Words
Example: Get 317 power words here
Be Specific
Specific headlines are more believable and you can make the headline more specific by adding numbers and a date.
Example: 5 secrets to lose 5 pounds in 7 days

3) Follow the crowd

When I first began blogging I was told to literately blog once a day.
I know sounds crazy and it is!

Here’s the facts, when you first began blogging 9x out of 10 unless you already have a large sphere of influence, you will start off with a very small audience.

That’s why I recommend guest posting to grow your audience and build your list.

Guest posting is great for a lot of reasons, but one major reason is you’re able to instantly get your content in front of your audience.

In other words instead of you screaming from the mountain tops for your target market to come to you, you take the back end approach and go to where they are.

Though guest posting is a great way to grow your audience and subscriber list, the method only works when done correctly.

So here some things you will want to look out for when considering implementing guest blogging into your list building strategy.

My sacred Guest Blogging secrets to get the best results

• Always create engaging and great content.
• Guest post for some of the top blogs who are within your niche.
• Make sure that every blog you guest post for has awesome engagement with their readers you can verify this by looking at the social media shares and by checking how many people comment (10 comments average throughout the blog is good).
• Make sure that whoever you want to guest blog for will allow you to place your link of your website or capture page within your author bio.
• Make sure your bio links are very noticeable and that your author bio is not on a separate page from your guest post.
  If the blog will not allow any links in your bio it’s not a great place to guest post to get more subscribers.

 

4) My strategy for getting Influencers to share your content

When you create your blog post make sure that you add a min of 10 links with the top influencers within your niche to your blog post.

Once you publish your post send out a friendly email to each person you mentioned within your article just to let them know you referenced them.

Most likely they will check it out and if the content is good 9x out of 10 they will be thankful for the shout out and share your content with their audience.

Which if you choose the right companies to reference it could be 1000’s of people your content is sent out too.

If your blog post is set up to capture leads this method alone can get you tons of new email subscribers.

Also, this method is a great way to begin networking and building great relationships with the influencers in your industry.

 

How To Outreach Like A Pro

Make sure to keep the message very casual and friendly.

4 resources to find the top influencers in any niche:

• Autorityspy
• Technorati
• Buzzsumo
• Bananatag – A great free resource to use once the email is sent because it will allow you to see if your blog link inside your outreach email was clicked or not.

 

5) Get a ton of traffic and email subscribers using Google+

After you publish your blog post make sure that you follow the people you’ve mentioned in the post, add this to the end of the post
“mentioned in this post (Then add their google+ name)”
Here’s an example of how that looks in action:



Because you’ve Google+ them to your post they will receive a notification by Google, letting them know they’ve been mentioned in your post.

Once they see the content they will have the chance to share it on their Google+ platform as well which means more blog views and new subscribers.

This method works great because instead of you being a taker like most people you’re being a giver.

By sharing others content and products you’ll stand out far more than your competitors within you field, who don’t do the same.

 

6) How to use PDF’s to your advantage

When people are reading your post and you’re providing a ton of value and resources within your content, most readers (including me) wish they could write down the information to refer back to it later.

But what if you could make it easier for your readers by providing them the option to download the blog post in pdf format and require an opt-in in exchange.

Here’s an example of how it looks in action

Once they press the image it pops up an opt-in box



Sure some will pass on the offer but others will take advantage of it because it’s something they actually want and need right then.

In fact, I know someone who use this method in all of their post and she gets 1000’s of new subscribers because of it.

To get the best results, you will want to add it 2 times with your post once at the beginning and another at the end.

 

7) The underestimated strategy to finding hot free email subscribers

So you’ve probably been wondering if forum marketing works anymore and if it’s even worth your time and effort.

The very simple answer to that is Forum Marketing is far from being Dead!

In fact, Forum marketing is one of the best ways to begin building you’re email list when your just starting out.

The reason forum marketing works so well is because most forums are packed with super targeted people who are ready to buy.

What’s even more cool is that most of these forums are 100% free.

You can’t beat it!
The people who say forum marketing is dead are simply on the wrong forum or misinformed.

In fact, if you join the right forum there could be 100’s to 1000’s of people seeing your content every day.

Here’s a screenshot from one of the most popular forums out there the Warrior Forum



As you can see from the image above there is great engagement going on with the content of this post, considering it reached over 900 views.

Even more cool though is that people are responding to the content on the post which means if the offer at the end of the post matches the desires of the readers they will become new subscribers.

So if you position yourself the right way you can get a ton of new subscribers to your list by using this method alone.

Here are a few tips you can use to make forum marketing work best for you:

• Join forums who cater to your target market- Omgili is a great resource to find forums in your niche
• Join forums that have great monthly traffic and you can check the website traffic on Alexa
• Check the Forums Members Agreement
• See what’s trending the most on that forum and post about those things.
• Create your name as the username
• Use Your Picture as the avatar
• Add your capture page within your forum signature.
• Comment on some of the top forum post.

 

8) Extract 100’s of new subscribers with the OPL List Building Method

Wouldn’t it be nice to market to someone else’s niche related list of hot buyers.

I mean with a small investment and a click of a button you can be in the position to get a ton of new subscribers.
 
Well, this is what the OPL (other people’s list) strategy allows you to do.

So essentially it’s similar to solo ads in which you pay others with a large list to promote your offer to those on the list.

Here are a few ways to make sure the OPL Method works best for you:

• Before you pay any vendor make sure that the list is a targeted list.
• Ask about the email open rate percentage.
• If possible ask the seller how their list has responded to offers like yours in the past.
• If possible see if you can market to a buyers list, meaning people who have bought something in your specific niche.
• Don’t spend 100’s of dollars upfront start with $50 and under to test the list and if it does well feel free to scale.

Just imagine how amazing it’s gonna feel to have a list of 1000+ people waiting to engage with you.

Imagine finally having a crowd of die hard fans that are holding onto your every word and looking to you as the go to expert within your field.

Sound impossible?
It’s not.
You’ve got what it takes to conquer your fears and overcome any obstacle necessary to reach your goals.

Just Take Action!

10 Writing Tips for Great Social Media Posts

It’s hard to keep up with the latest techniques for social media posting, isn’t it?

In the constantly changing world of best blogging practices, it seems we’ve just learned how to craft the short and sassy snippet posts when a growing trend appears urging longer posts for more engaged reader experience.  But take heart, crafting a longer post can be expertly achieved without too much effort and will pay handsome dividends.


While the limited number of characters should be used for tweets and Google headlines, writing short posts is important for some social media, platforms such as Facebook are encouraging longer word counts.  While the bottom line remains that word count is secondary in importance to valuable content, there are a few standard practices that will help your posts’ online performance.
Let’s explore them, shall we?

1.  Craft shareworthy posts

The same strategies apply here as with shorter posts.  A shareworthy post needs to be one that that others find enough value in to share with friends and colleagues.  On longer posts, you can gain valuable shareability by:

• Building trust. In longer posts, there’s more flexibility to include citations and references, and by sharing your expert sources, you gain in trust and credibility.
• Sharing your data. For greater credibility, let the numbers and stats speak for themselves regardless of your expertise.  Check out datavisualization.ch for some creative ways to present your information.
• Be mobile friendly. Given the staggering increase in mobile users, the following quote from Matt Trotta of BuzzFeed pretty much sums it up.   “You can’t go viral if your content can’t be viewed and shared on the mobile web.”

 

2.  Post with purpose

Danny Wong, posting on Shareaholic, cites Marcus Cordero “It starts with having a purpose beyond pushing your brand”.  Show your readers you’re not only an expert, but that you care about them.

Writing longer pieces can be challenging to stay on topic with.  To keep your writing on purpose, post with your audience in mind: know what their questions and concerns are and why they’re using social media.

3.  Write great headlines

Short posts or long ones, great headlines rule.  Check out Jon Morrow’s Headline Hacks Report or Brian Clark’s Magnetic Headlines for comprehensive instruction on how to create compelling headlines for optimal social media shares.

4.  Go longer for better performance

Neil Patel explains SerpIQ’s study which shows search result ranks based on volume of word count: “The more content you have, the more of it gets indexed. The more that gets indexed, the better it will perform in searches and results. It’s just that simple.” Still, be smart and don’t overdo it. Remember, it’s not all about length – it’s about quality and length. Mr. Patel recently claimed that much depends on your target audience: businesses or consumers.

5.  Write longer posts to leverage the power of long-tail keywords

Also, Mr. Patel makes the convincing point that in longer posts, the opportunity for using a variety of long-tail keywords is greater.  And this means better performance in search queries for semantically related keywords, not just exact matches.

 

6.  Longer content creates greater backlinks and gets shared more

And a final point from Neil Patel’s post. He presents a couple of graphics from Moz that show an undeniable relation between higher word count and increased backlinks – which increases SEO and, of course, conversions.
A second chart shows the same correlation between word count and social media shares.  Facebook and LinkedIn shares almost doubled when word count rose from 400 to 1,500, and Tweets increased by approximately one half in the same span.

7.  Give your blog posts time to simmer

When writing longer articles, give your posts a day or two to age. This gives you time to switch gears between writing and editing to really fine tune your post.

8.  Use more, bigger and better images

You can exercise greater hold on your readers’ attention in longer posts with interesting photos, screenshots, or graphics.  Ensure they’re of high quality and relevant to your post for visually stimulating engagement.

Rebecca Corliss of Hubspot reports on their study that shows using images on Facebook pages increased shares by 53% over the average post, and that posts with images have an increase of 104% in comments. That’s fairly substantial and well worth getting out the camera for.

9.  Avoid repetition

Mitt Ray of Social Marketing Writing presses this point home on his blog. In longer blog posts, it can be easy to fall into the trap of repeating your ideas when trying to hit a specific word count.  

Don’t try to force your ideas with filler content; if you’re satisfied with what you’ve got, stop writing. And edit ruthlessly after you’ve finished writing.

10.  Put share buttons at the bottom of every post

Make it easy for your readers to share by placing social media share buttons at the bottom of all posts and pages.  With longer posts, readers are less likely to share if they have to return to the top to find how to share it.

And there you have it, 10 tips for creating great social media posts that your audience will love and share.  Try them out if you’re new to writing longer posts, and of course, test, test, test to find the best ones for your audience.

http://socialmouths.com/2014/10/14/10-writing-tips-great-social-media-posts/ 

Snapchat vs. Instagram vs. Facebook Stories

We all know that Facebook and Snap Inc. are currently in the middle of a classic Silicon Valley tech battle - this one we might call 'The Battle of the Stories'.

Snap Inc. first introduced Stories to Snapchat back in October 2013, enabling users to upload an infinite number of photos or videos which would be visible to all of their followers for 24 hours. Soon after, Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel turned down Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's offer to buy Snapchat for $3 billion, which was the first step in the Stories battle yet to come.

After various failed attempts to tap into Snapchat's audience, in August 2016, Facebook-owned Instagram rolled out their own version of Stories, which was almost identical to Snapchat. 

Instagram took Snap's model and continued to expand on it, notably adding live-streaming into the mix in November 2016. By April 2017 - eight months after launch - Instagram announced that it's Stories option had surpassed Snapchat in their number of daily active users.

Adding more fuel to the Stories fire, Facebook also launched Stories-type functionality within Messenger, WhatsApp and Facebook proper, hoping to imitate the success of Instagram Stories and maintain the company's position as the leader in all things social media. 

Some people want to join the Stories fight by picking sides, some people couldn’t care less and some just want to know which of these three platforms to invest their advertising efforts. So, putting aside all the drama, let’s discuss the various ways these platforms are used and how marketers can capitalize on these spaces to connect with and get in front of their target audience.

Why Stories?

There are many reasons for the high-engagement and user numbers on social media Stories, but why are Stories useful for brands? Stories are used for sharing daily, creative, real-time updates. It can be a great option for people and businesses to add the "human touch" to their brand and build their brand personality. Stories is a creative form of brand transparency, a space that enables you to share your brand visually and creatively, all while connecting with your audience by providing them that “insider view” of your business - all things that help increase brand awareness and loyalty.
But there is, of course, a right and wrong way to use Stories.

Just like any social media option, when posting content on (Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook) Stories, it’s critical to approach this with a strategy, and to use the platforms most relevant to your audience for maximum impact.

 

Creating a 'Stories' Strategy (Things to Consider)

1. Which platform works best for you?
Who is your audience and what is your message? The average Snapchat user is 18-24 years old (skewing female). Snapchat users are expecting casual, fun and creative content. The average Instagram user is only slightly older, with half of their users being between the age of 18-29. This audience (in general) expects visually-pleasing, pretty and polished content. Facebook has a much older user group, but it's the largest audience of them all. 

There's a lot of potential for businesses with a large following on Facebook to see positive results from the use of Stories - but without usage figures from Facebook as yet, it's hard to know whether Facebook Stories will ever take off?

2. What will your style of content sharing be? 

Whatever style you choose, consider how it compliments your already existing social media accounts. Make sure you share content which adds context to your regular posts and doesn’t confuse your audience.

3. Will you invest in advertising space?

You may have an account with plenty of followers and don’t feel the need to invest in ad space, but for some businesses, buying ad space is the most effective form of reaching an audience. Check out Snapchat's new self-services ad platform or Instagram's online ad platform to see the different advertising options available. 

4. Will you invest in influencer marketing? 

Having social media influencers promote your brand has become one of the most effective forms of marketing. 'Stories' is another space where you can capitalize on the power of influencers over the market.


By Emma Wiltshire  
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/special-columns/snapchat-vs-instagram-vs-facebook-stories 

9 Key Steps in Developing an Effective Content Strategy

Content helps your community and your audience relate to you - the more helpful and relatable you are, the more people want to begin a relationship with you.
 
Isn’t that how you began most of your friendships, whether they be online or off, by relating and finding things in common with people?

Relationships deepen, you're there when friends need you, and they're there when you need them. The more you consistently put out great, helpful content, the more people learn that you're someone they can look to when they have questions, that your brand is a presence they can rely on. And that leads to trust - and for a brand, trust is the most important goal, in a marketing sense.

People buy from people they trust.
When I set out to create content - either for my own blog or on behalf of one of my clients - I always start out with three very specific questions to guide my words:

1. Is this necessary?
2. Is this needed?
3. Is this helpful?

While it might appear that Questions 1 and 2 are the same, they’re actually quite different - I look at Question 1 from a utility perspective: "do I have the opportunity to help people find information on something I haven’t myself, been able to find information on?" While I look at Question 2 more from a community standpoint: "have I been listening and talking with my communities and have I found that they're asking for this type of information?" 

If I can answer 'yes' to each of those three questions, I'm more confident in sitting down to write. If I can't answer 'yes' to each of them, I remind myself that I’m not writing just for my own enjoyment, I’m writing for the people in the communities I keep myself in and serve. When I'm writing for a brand, I always try to keep on top of my mind – '"this isn’t about me. This is about my customers".

If I'm aiming to create more of a content marketing “strategy”, there are more things to consider, and it’s necessary to delve a bit deeper. Before beginning any sort of plan, you need to ensure that you know your goals and who you're creating content for.

You can break down the plan to create your social media and content marketing strategy into nine key steps.

1. Define goals/marketing objectives 

Are your key goals in line with our overall company objectives? How will social media and your content marketing program help you get closer to achieving those goals?

These are key questions you need to ask in defining an effective strategy, as opposed to simply 'doing' social and content.

2. Establish current situation

Once you've chosen your goals, you need to create or align your various social media accounts.

If there are accounts already in place, conduct a social media audit to see where your business currently stands - this will help create a baseline that you can look at later to see if there's been improvement.

3. Define audience

Have you defined your audience? Do you know who'll be receiving the content you'll be providing (and how)?

Creating buyer personas and identifying the key traits of your audience is an essential element in effective planning, and cannot be overlooked.

4. Measure Demand

Have you taken the time to understand what content your audience is looking for, what questions they're asking that haven't been answered?

While you can never stop listening and talking with your community and audience, you have to start somewhere in order to guide your process.

5. Understand consumption behaviors 

What format does your audience and community like to receive content marketing in? Is it infographics? Videos? Text? Blogs? Live Streams? Webinars? 

What types of content are generating the most response within your niche?

6. Identify Key Platforms

Where will you distribute your content – where is your community most active right now? Where is your audience?

Where are the people you're not yet reaching but aim to?

There's no point focusing on Twitter if your audience is all on Facebook - knowing where to share is as important as what you're sharing.

7. Allocate Resources

Do you currently have the staff, resources and budget for your content marketing plan to be effective?

Once you know the answers to the previous questions, you'll have a better idea of projected scope - is this something you can feasibly maintain?

If not, where we will get more resources?

8. Establish Tracking Criteria

How will you identify, track and analyze the key metrics for your campaign? Each element has it's own measurements - sales would be click rates and conversions, awareness might be audience growth and engagement.

The only way to know if you're getting closer to realizing your strategic goals is by putting trackable, traceable data criteria in place.

9. Create with Focus

Once you've established what content your audience is seeking and where to distribute it, you're ready to create a content plan and editorial calendar. And then, begin writing.

The most important thing to remember is that although you've laid out a roadmap with your strategic plan, you always have to plan for 'the unplannable'. You'll need to be ok with the idea that your entire plan might need to be scrapped and rewritten at any time.

Anything to add? 

Lucy Rendler Kaplan 
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/smt-influencer/9-key-steps-developing-effective-content-strategy