When developing a social media strategy, it’s important to determine how social will fit into the mix of your overall marketing strategy as well as the vision and mission of the chorus. Find a team, set goals, and choose channels and content that fit into your organization’s structure while also providing relevance to your target audience. Consider which types of content you want to create and share as well as determine what personality you want to portray. Experiment, automate, and analyze to refine your social media strategy.
Look for a team of tech-savvy, well-connected, and experienced social media marketers to develop and implement your social media strategy. Social media is not a side project, but rather an important component of your overall marketing strategy. It should be put in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing! Determine how much time each person can contribute and try to delegate assignments. Your social team will likely have someone leading the team with a few dedicated content sourcers, writers, and/or posters.
Consider your chorus’s mission and overarching goals. Using this, plan out how you can help the organization reach these goals through use of social media. Set clear, measurable goals for yourselves. Sample metrics might include post engagements, followers, post clicks, video views, ticket buyers via social, social referrals to website, or leads/email subscribers generated via social.
Don’t take on more than you can chew! Carefully select which channels your chorus will use based on the demographics of your target audience. For example, if your buyer persona is “The Family Concert Goer” you might want to find channels that parents frequent. Here is a breakdown of demographics by social channels. Popular social networks include:
Start to follow organizations that your target audiences follow. If your buyer persona is “The Family Concert Goer,” search for parenting Facebook groups/pages, Meetups, Reddits, or other forums in which local parents might participate. By following or liking these channels, you’ll find great share-worthy content on a daily basis even if you aren’t creating your own content. This is also a chance for you to engage with your audience in a non-promotional way and, if the opportunity arises, even post your own relevant content in the forums.
As your marketing team creates new content, post to social channels. But, remember the 4:1 ratio! This applies on your social channels too. For every social post that promotes your concerts or events, you should post three other pieces that are relevant and interesting to your target audience such as “10 Activities to do With Your Children in [Boston],” “How to Help Your Kids Become More Cultured,” or “The Benefits of Singing for Children.”
Some content will be created specifically for social. Think videos, memes, GIFs, etc. As a team, brainstorm some ideas for creating original, unique, share-worthy social content that resonates with your target audience.
Try experimenting with boosting the post (Facebook) or advertising your content within your social media platforms. This typically works best when you put spend behind a piece of content that is already performing well organically. Did your organic post get a lot of likes or shares? Try putting advertising dollars behind it to see the additional reach.
Try to use social media management, listening, and scheduling tools to automate your workload. Automating can help eliminate your administrative work and allow you to focus on the creative content generation and strategic side of social media management. Here are a few tools that can help:
Most social channels have their own analytics dashboard available. Run these reports on a regular basis to ensure you are posting the most relevant content. Learn what works, what doesn’t, and revise your strategy to boost your results.