Anyone on this rollercoaster can tell you: social media marketing has been a bumpy ride in 2023. Between the launch of TikTok Shop, enhanced privacy laws and whatever's happening over at Twitter/X, there have been a lot of changes this year.
Not only have the social networks themselves changed, but user behavior has evolved as well. How and when users engage with the core social media networks has shifted. Has your strategy shifted to meet them where they are?
Now is the perfect time to review your current social media strategy and chart a course for 2024.
Update Your Personas
The key to all marketing is knowing who you want to attract and where they spend their time online. This is critical for social media, so you know which network(s) your audience is using and meet them there, versus chasing the latest new platform just because it's trendy.
Now is the time to revisit your personas and update accordingly. You don't need to start from the ground up, but ensure they're still accurate. This is an absolute must if you made your personas before 2020 and haven't revisited them since.
With lockdowns and companies moving online, people's behavior changed drastically. You likely will find your personas are spending their time differently online as well. Additionally, the social networks themselves have changed drastically which has either pushed away existing users or attracted a new audience - Twitter/X is a key example.
Most popular networks in 2023
As a jumping-off point for your personas, here's what the data showed us about social media use in 2023 for marketers. (source)
When deciding what social media network(s) to utilize in 2024, let your personas guide you. Your persona research should illuminate which platforms your target audience is using and how they're using them.
Capacity Planning
Next, you have to be realistic about who will be doing what and how much time they have. One of the biggest pitfalls that organizations fall into with social media is taking what we call a "being everywhere and nowhere" approach. Organizations will state a goal to use social media as much as possible and have a presence across each network, but then the task is passed off to the marketing manager "as they have time." The end result is inconsistent posting and lower quality posts as the manager has to prioritize quantity over quality.
Crafting a single social media post typically takes between 15 and 30 minutes if no content creation is needed - aka, if you're resharing a post, posting a simple text post or linking to an existing asset like a blog or video. If you have to create imagery, video or other content for your post, that can easily take 1-3 hours per post.
When planning for capacity, identify:
- Who on the team will "own" the social media posting strategy
- Who on the team will be responsible for creating posts
- Who on the team will be responsible for publishing posts
- Who on the team will reply to comments and DMs
- How much time will the team member(s) above have to dedicate a week to social media
- What was our posting schedule last year
It's best to be realistic about what you can execute. If you're partnering with a marketing agency, be sure to factor in their efforts with your planning. The advantage of partnering with an agency like BizzyWeb is that they will handle your routine posting, allowing your team to dedicate their time toward crafting those high-quality posts that take longer to execute.
Choose Your Network(s)
If you take nothing else away from this blog, take this: Don't be everywhere - be really, really good at one or two networks.
We all have constraints of time. Additionally, social media users expect quality content and engagement. Users don't care that you post 4x times a month on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, TikTok AND Pinterest. They care that the image in your last post was distorted because it wasn't designed with LinkedIn's aspect ratio in mind. They care that they sent a DM 2 weeks ago and haven't gotten a response.
It's better to pick one or two key networks and spend your time there. If you have additional profiles - or want to claim your business name as a username so no one else can - that's perfectly fine. Users will understand if they stumble upon your Facebook page in the wild and the last post was from 2015 that you aren't using that network. You can even pin a post directing users on where to find you.
The question of where you should spend time will be answered by the persona research you did earlier. Focus on the network(s) where your audience is. If that's a trendy platform like TikTok - great! But if your target audience spends all their time on LinkedIn and barely uses TikTok, then it's not worth spending your time making TikTok videos.
Use AI Where Possible
There are a great number of AI tools that can help assist your social media content creation process. Like with all AI content creation, I caution against just copy + pasting content it generates. Not least of all because your social media is much more personal than your other marketing channels. Your posts should reflect the voice of your organization - not the same AI-generated tone a million other pages use.
→ Related Content: 3 Pitfalls to Avoid with AI Content in Marketing
- Using a tool like ChatGPT, Jounce or HubSpot Assistant to write a summary for a blog post
- The AI image creation tools in Canva and Photoshop
- The AI video creation tools in Canva and Wondershare Filmora
- Asking a tool like ChatGPT, Jounce or HubSpot Assistant for ideas for a social media post around [X] topic for [Y] audience
- Asking a tool like ChatGPT, Jounce or HubSpot Assistant to edit a social post you've written for grammar
Tapping into these tools will shave off time your team needs to spend on post creation - but it's not a replacement for post creation.
When revisiting your social media strategy for 2024, take the time to update your personas, identify capacity, select a key network(s) and use AI to automate where possible. Following these steps will help you create an achievable social media strategy for your team.
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BizzyWeb is a Minneapolis-based digital marketing and web design agency that helps companies get the high-quality leads they need to grow and thrive. Our tactics include inbound marketing, SEO, advertising, web design, content creation and sales automation. We are an accredited HubSpot Platinum Partner and we offer full-service HubSpot onboarding, enablement and strategy for new and current users.
