Content Strategy Before Social Strategy

No matter how far you're along in the social media experience, you hopefully understand that social media marketing is not just about having a Facebook page or Twitter profile. You can't succeed in social media if you don't have something interesting to say.

Social media is the vehicle for communicating and distributing interesting stories (content) across the Internet. In turn, your customers and prospects share the content they think is compelling.

So, what does content strategy have to do with it?

The purpose of content strategy is to facilitate the consistent delivery of interesting stories. The end result is that you will attract and retain the attention of the targeted audience that you want to reach. Preparation is important because social media is a very active space. There's a lot to do and a ton of conversations taking place. It is a very distracting environment, and everyone has a very short attention span.

You have to figure out what kind of conversation you're going to spark that will make customers and prospects pay attention to you because social media attention is very hard to get (or retain for that matter).

Your competition isn't just the company that sells the same stuff that you do. Your competition is every brand, every company, every politician, every celebrity and everybody that thinks they have something interesting to say.

That's why it's important to have a plan (content strategy). And that's why your plan must be put in place before you show up on any social media channel. Otherwise, you'll be wasting the opportunity.

More next time.

Reference: Patricia Redsicker