How to create a good content strategy

A good content strategy defines your success on social media. If you start sharing posts without having a social media content strategy in place, there’s a risk you’ll be working in an ad hoc manner instead of a strategic one. Before you know it, you’re coming up with all sorts of great ideas without having a goal or target group in mind. In this blog post, we’ll share 4 tips on how to plan social media content effectively.

Get clear on your identity

Knowing who you are, what you do and why you exist is important for every strategy. This is what you base your objectives on. The identity of your organization consists of your mission, vision, core values, USPs, and products or services. Make sure you pay attention to your identity and test it against your employees. From selecting your ambassadors to determining your tone of voice, everything to do with your social media content strategy should be underpinned by a clear identity.

Determine your communication objectives

As a professional organization, you probably already have communication goals in mind, and you may even have a marketing approach to reach those goals. Unfortunately, this step is often skipped when organizations decide to become seriously active on social media. That’s why it’s essential to determine the objectives you want to achieve online before attaching KPIs to them. Posting two messages a month about your organization's DNA is a good example of a clear KPI that is easy to stick to.

Identify your target groups

It’s important to think about your target groups and sub-target groups. In order to create appealing content, you need to know exactly what each sub-target group is concerned with. Alternatively, think in terms of personas, which are representatives of your target group that can be as superficial or detailed as you want. There are even organizations that celebrate the birthdays of their personas. This seems excessive, but it does help bring your personas to life and provide a clearer understanding of who you are aiming at with your social media content. 

Choose your content pillars and sub-themes

Your content pillars serve as the focus areas forming the common thread in your communications. Typical content pillars include thought leadership, personal content, business news, event content, and third-party content. With the right social media platform, content pillars and sub-themes can be manually added based on your strategy and goals. Your content pillars and sub-themes are often related to the unique factors within your organization. By naming them, you bring focus to your communications strategy. 

Strategize your social media content

If you know your identity, your goals, your target audience, and the story you want to tell, you should start to see the beginnings of a clear content strategy. From here, you’ll be able to identify the best social media platforms for achieving your aims.

At Apostle, we developed a template that will guide you through the process of designing your content strategy. So don’t let your social media content be determined by a gut feeling or a hunch. Instead, make sure it's clear, targeted, and strategic. Get in touch with Apostle to find out more!