10.1: Strategizing social media

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Social media folder on a smartphone. (Unsplash free-to-use license; Nathan Dumlao)

To write and create content professionally for social media, it is necessary to plan strategically. Social media networks are platforms for all other media types. If a media writer/content creator enters into these spaces without a plan, they will soon learn that is is quite difficult to gain and hold an audience's attention without outstanding presenters, outstanding forms of presentation and consistency. Developing a strategy is the key to consistency. For guidance on developing media content strategies, writers should turn to the experts in strategic communications. Those working in marketing/advertising and public relations have nearly a century of experience in researching how to craft messages that will be salient with mass audiences and how to develop strategies to have the greatest impact in the most efficient way.

Advertising and social media strategies

The rise of social media has had significant effects on the strategic communication industry. Marketers use social media to enhance traditional efforts such as direct mail fliers and television advertisements. Social media also enable marketers to create interactive content for audiences. In the public relations field, social media platforms give professionals easier access to journalists and news media outlets. For example, it is common for PR professionals to reach out to reporters via X (formerly Twitter).  

In many ways, social media have made it easier for consumers to hold organizations, public figures, and large institutions accountable.¹ Users can easily find and reveal information about a previous event involving an organization, whether it was advantageous or damaging to the brand. Users can also provide instant public feedback by voicing their opinions via social media networks. Furthermore, social media have made it challenging for many organizations to control their brand and present a consistent message across platforms. Audiences can generate information that can be damaging to a brand’s reputation.

Social media require strategizing both because of their amazing potential to reach audiences with targeted messages and because they have an amazing capacity to do harm to reputations. This is all the more reason to think strategically about producing social media content.

The following are the key steps to developing a social media strategy:

• Identify the message goal. Social media message goals should reflect the organization’s overall mission. Message goals can include increasing brand awareness, creating a favorable perception of an organization, and convincing the audience to buy a product. The goal should be clearly articulated in the content. Also, select the social media platform that would be the most effective in accomplishing the message goal. Each social media tool has specific characteristics and audiences, which will affect whether the message goals are achieved.
   
• Identify the target audience. Similar to public relations writing, social media messages need to be targeted. After identifying the key audience, examine what they’re talking about including their interests, attitudes, and beliefs. Social media content should reflect audience analysis research. As you tailor the content of messages to an audience, do not exaggerate attempts to be interesting or relevant. Because social media messages are audience-centered, they’re not necessarily grounded in what you personally think is appealing.
  
  The lack of attention to audience analysis can have serious consequences. One example is IHOP’s Twitter controversy in 2015. In an attempt to reach a young audience and produce attention-grabbing content, IHOP tweeted about its pancakes, making a provocative comment that compared them to a woman with small breasts: “Flat but has a GREAT personality.” Audiences quickly reacted with outrage, causing the company to issue an apology.
  
  Another somewhat notorious example can be found in the case of social media influencer, Logan Paul, who was the center of a public outcry in response to a video he posted while on a trip to Japan. Paul recorded video of his visit to Aokigahara, a forest location known for its high suicide rates. The video appeared to show the body of a deceased individual. He posted the video on his YouTube channel and clips of it later surfaced on Twitter, gaining more than 100,000 retweets and a swift negative response from a global public. Although Paul apologized for the insensitive nature of the video and temporarily suspended his vlog, the negative impacts of this unethical production have had lasting effects on his reputation.
  
  These mishaps demonstrate the need for careful message and audience analysis. They also reinforce the point that although you may think a message is humorous in the moment, your target audience may not appreciate it.
   
• Identify your organization’s social media approach. Communication choices should reflect organizational strategies. Wilson, Guinan, Parise and Weinberg identified four ways in which companies use social media. They are determined by the “company’s tolerance for uncertain outcomes and the level of results sought."²
  • The “predictive practitioner” approach uses caution when sending out social media messages. Instead of launching a social media strategy that involves all departments in a company, only a specific department (example: marketing or human resources) uses its social media platforms. This allows more control of social media messaging and guarantees some level of certainty in accomplishing the stated objectives.
  • The “creative experimenter” approach accepts uncertainty and deploys small social media “experiments” to learn and improve overall business functions. Sometimes, businesses will take to Facebook or Twitter to receive feedback on products or business practices from internal (example: employees) or external (example: customers) audiences. The overall goal is to listen and learn from interactions; therefore, unpredictable results are accepted. 
  • The “social media champion” approach takes strategies to a more advanced level. A designated team is in charge of the organization’s overall social media presence. The team also creates an official social media policy and guidelines for the organization. Larger social media projects typically use this strategy. Unlike the predictive practitioner strategy, this approach does not confine social media use to a particular department and considers social media messages across various functions.
  • The “social media transformer” strategy targets both internal and external audiences by launching large-scale projects that involve multiple departments. As with the social media champion approach, a team is devoted to planning, creating, and launching the organization’s social media projects. However, these projects are usually larger and more advanced than those using the social media champion approach. This strategy specifically considers how social media can influence business strategy, brand, and culture. 

Each type of strategy involves different levels of resources and different-sized teams involving one or more departments within the organization. None of these professional strategies revolve around a single media writer attempting to research, plan, create, disseminate and measure the impact of their campaigns on their own. Organizations use multiple approaches when designing social media message campaigns, and some of these roles can be combined, but it should help when planning a social media campaign to think first about your role.

Are you acting as a practitioner in a narrow space? Are you experimenting with different message strategies to learn which type of message or which content is most relevant to your audience? Are you presenting an entire organization's face to the world via social media? Are you not only presenting an entire organization's identity to the world but also using social media as part of a strategic image overhaul? 

If you know your role, you can plan which social media platforms to use, what types of content to include (text, photos, graphics, videos, music and other sounds, talent, etc.), how many posts or other pieces of content to create and how long the social media campaign might be backed by paid social promotion.

 

1. Green, D. (2012). How to think about social media. New Statesman. Retrieved from:  http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/da...-green/2012/01 social-media-regulation

2. Wilson, H., Guinan, P., Parise, S. & Weinberg, B. (2011). What’s your social media strategy? Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2011/07/whats-your-s...media-strategy