Refresh Your Social Media Strategy This Fall

Although the temperature outside is still climbing into the 80’s, you have probably noticed pumpkin candles, drinks, food, and just about everything else you can imagine, popping up on shelves everywhere over the past few weeks. Long sunny days by the pool are being replaced with chilly afternoons watching football, and that can only mean one thing: Fall is upon us! I, for one, am excited for cooler weather and an excuse to buy new sweaters. Plus, Fall can be a great time to press restart and refresh more than just your wardrobe. It is a great time for a new start and an even better time to take a look at your social media profiles and strategy. The following are some ways you can use this time of year to regroup and freshen up your business efforts on social media:

Revisit Strategy

What social media goals did you set for the past year? Have you reached them? If the answer is, “No,” revisit the ones you haven’t reached and decide exactly what you can do to reach those goals before the end of the year. If things aren’t working out as you had hoped, this is the perfect time to adjust your strategy and test new things that may work to bring you social media success.  If you need a quick refresher on how to set a strategy, CLICK HERE for our guide to marketing success in 2016.

Create an Editorial Calendar

This is a great time to check over your current editorial calendar and get one set up for the next few months if you haven’t already. Fall and Winter are some of the busiest months of the year, for both personal and professional reasons.  With many holidays on the horizon, it can be the perfect time to experiment with different social media campaigns. Also take a look at what posting times are getting the highest engagement. If engagement is low, try testing out new days and posting times and monitor your results.

Make Sure You Have a Consistent Voice

Creating and delivering a consistent voice for your brand can be tough, but is extremely important. Once this voice is established, making sure everyone who may be posting on your social media profiles is using this voice is key to staying consistent. While you want to make sure your voice is consistent, you also want to make sure it is not robotic. There is nothing worse than reading repetitive tweets with no personality. Humanizing your brand and your voice on social media makes you seem relatable and is a great way to build relationships with other businesses as well as consumers.

photo-1443464812268-44d8bb5f2df5Try Out New Types of Content

If your social media campaigns aren’t quite where you want them to be, it may be time to try some new types of content. Does your company have a blog that it updates regularly? A blog is an awesome way to to voice your opinions while getting your brand name out there on social media. Hubspot reports that B2B marketers that use blogs get 67% more leads than those that do not. Once your blog is up and running, promoting your blog on social media is a great way to boost engagement and gain more followers. Having a blog is vital to your content marketing and social media strategies, and can also boost SEO efforts.

Make Sure You’re Engaging with Others

Whether you’re retweeting an interesting blog post or replying to comments, engaging on social media is extremely important. Sharing content from others in your industry can be a great way to make connections, and, if you’re lucky, they will return the favor and share your content. Replying to tweets and comments is very important, especially if those comments are complaints. When people are frustrated, they often take their complaints to social media, and they are always expecting a response. If you do have any complaints on any of your social media sites, make sure you are responding in a timely manner as well as doing everything you can to resolve the issue at hand. Taking the time to respond and showing your true concern will leave a favorable impression.  This was a valuable piece of information we included in our Guide to Marketing for Growth in 2016. 

For many, Fall is fresh new start and a time to get on track before the year ends. Use this as a time find out what is working with your social media efforts and adjust strategies that may not be performing as you had hoped. Fall is a great time of year that, unfortunately, does not last long, so grab a pumpkin spice latte, throw on your favorite sweater, and freshen up your social media strategy!

About the Author

Cailyn_Chrystal_ProfileCailyn Chrystal is a Project Manager at 898 Marketing.  Cailyn develops strategies and manages implementation of content through social media channels for 898 Marketing and it’s clients, as well as optimization strategies for websites and content. Cailyn is a native of Youngstown, Ohio, and a graduate of Duquesne University where she earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing Communications.