How to Create the Perfect Social Media Content Strategy with SocialBee

What Is SocialBee?

SocialBee is an all-in-one social media management tool that allows you to create, schedule and share your posts across all your accounts from one place.

Here are SocialBee’s key social media features:

• Supported Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Business Profile, TikTok, YouTube, and Bluesky. 
• Unified Social Media Management: Create, schedule, and reshare posts across all your social media channels from one intuitive dashboard. This ensures your brand’s consistent presence, helping you achieve important marketing objectives.
• AI-Powered Content Creation: Leverage our AI generator to craft engaging captions and visuals. With over 1000 AI prompts, you’re never short of inspiration.
• Team Collaboration: Collaborate seamlessly with features like internal notes for feedback, user invitations with role assignments, and a content approval system to ensure quality.
• Analytics: Dive deep into data-driven insights to gauge your content’s performance. Understand your audience’s preferences, engagement rates, and much more to refine your strategy.
• Social Inbox: Manage all your social interactions, from comments to direct messages, in one unified inbox. Respond to your followers promptly, track conversations, and never miss a beat.
• Extensive Platform Integration: SocialBee integrates with design tools (Canva), media libraries (Unsplash and GIPHY), multiple URL shorteners, content curation tools (SocialBee’s browser extension, Quuu, and Pocket) automation tools (Zapier and Pabbly), and more to streamline and centralize all your work in one intuitive dashboard.

What You Need to Do Before Creating Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Developing an effective social media strategy is essential for businesses of all sizes.

A well-designed plan can not only draw in more customers but also position you as a thought leader in your field. Over time, by consistently following your strategy, your ambitious social media goals can be realized.

Differentiate yourself from competitors by crafting unique content that truly connects with your social media followers.

Here are five steps you need to take before creating your social media marketing strategy:

1. Start by setting your social media goals
2. Define your target audience
3. Choose the best social platforms for your brand
4. Discover your social media content pillars
5. Establish guidelines for your social media strategy

1. Start by Setting Your Social Media Goals

Before kickstarting the content strategy process, it is important to set clear and achievable social media goals. This will help you determine how much you should be investing in social media marketing, how to structure your content calendar, and how often you should post new content. 

To ensure that your efforts bear fruit, adhere to the SMART criteria when setting your goals:

1. Specific: Be exact in what you want to achieve. Instead of saying, “I want more followers,” specify a number, such as “I aim to gain 1,000 new followers in the next three months.”
2. Measurable: Establish metrics to track progress. For instance, if your goal is to boost website traffic, use analytics tools to measure the number of visitors redirected from social media.
3. Achievable: While it’s essential to aim high, your goals should also be realistic. Evaluate the resources and time you have and set goals that stretch but don’t break your capacity.
4. Relevant: Ensure your social media goals align with your overall business objectives. If your business goal is to increase sales, your social media objective might be to drive more qualified leads.
5. Time-bound: Set a clear deadline. This will keep you accountable and help you measure progress over a set period.

Social Media Goal Examples

Here are some social media goals you should considering while establishing your strategy:

• Increase brand awareness
  • SMART Goal: “I aim to increase brand mentions on Twitter by 20% over the next three months by collaborating with influencers in our niche.”
• Drive traffic to your website via social platforms
  • SMART Goal: “By optimizing post timings and using targeted ads, I aim to achieve a 30% rise in website traffic from Facebook and Instagram links over the next six months.”
• Generate qualified leads from social media channels
  • SMART Goal: “Over the next two months, I aim to garner 150 new sign-ups for our newsletter from our LinkedIn posts by launching a dedicated lead generation campaign.”
• Improve engagement levels
  • SMART Goal: “By curating more user-generated content and running weekly interactive polls, I aim to increase the average comments per post on Instagram to 60 within the next four months.”

2. Define Your Target Audience

A vital component of a great social media content strategy is defining a target audience. Doing audience research will allow you to know who you are trying to reach across your social platforms. Ultimately, this will help you craft targeted content that resonates with them, thus improving your social media metrics.

To reach the right audience, it’s crucial to consider how different types of content will affect them, and how it can be tailored accordingly.

Get to know your audience by leveraging SocialBee’s demographic data!

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With SocialBee, you can get a deeper glimpse into your audience’s demographic information, such as age and language distribution, and take note of the content types they prefer to see from you.

Here are three ways to define your target audience:

• Based on demographics – Define your audience’s age, gender, location, and income in order to identify who you should be targeting with your content strategy. This information will help you build reliable buyer personas.
• Based on interests – Use analytics tools to discover the topics, brands, and content types that are more likely to resonate with your potential customers. That way, you’ll be able to create content that directly appeals to them. 
• Based on behavior – Look at how your audience behaves online using monitoring tools and discover how they interact with different types of media. This will help you understand how best to reach them through your content strategy.

Buyer Persona Template

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3. Choose the Best Social Platforms for Your Brand

Choosing the right social channels to promote your brand is an underrated yet vital step before actually creating social media content. In fact, developing a successful social media content calendar is heavily reliant on how well you identify the channels your audience is showing interest in.

For example, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest are perfect for visually-oriented brands. Meanwhile, LinkedIn is perfect for professionals looking to establish themselves as thought leaders in their industries.

Here’s how you can identify the best social platforms for your brand:

• Identify the ones that are actively being used by your target audience
• Research which platforms work for your competitors
• Consider your social media goals and think about how efficient each platform is for your specific needs

Once you have identified the platforms you should use, you can begin crafting your content strategy with SocialBee.

SocialBee makes it very easy for businesses, entrepreneurs, NGOs, and creators to create effective social media marketing strategy. The platform provides automated solutions for creating and scheduling posts, streamlining teamwork, and leveraging analytics to understand how well each post performs.

Examples of recommended social media platforms for different professions and industries:

4. Discover Your Social Media Content Pillars

Creating content pillars is a detail worth noting if you want to build a great social media marketing strategy. 

As far as the types of content you create are concerned, they should reflect your business’s values, mission, and goals and what your audience wants to know or consume in terms of content.

Here are ten examples of social media content pillars:

1. Educational Content: This pillar focuses on teaching your audience about a particular topic or answering common questions they may have. This could be in the form of blog posts, how-to videos, webinars, or infographics. For a business selling skincare products, for example, this could mean tutorials on how to use the products or articles on the benefits of natural ingredients.
2. Inspirational Content: Use stories, motivational quotes, case studies, or user-generated content to inspire your audience. This could also include success stories of customers who have benefited from your product or service.
3. Behind-the-Scenes: Show your audience what goes on behind the curtain. This could be a look into your office culture, the making of a product, events, or the people behind the brand. It helps in building trust and humanizing your brand.
4. User-Generated Content (UGC): Sharing content created by your customers or followers provides social proof and encourages more of your audience to engage and share their experiences. This could be reviews, photos of customers using your product, or stories of their journey with your brand.
5. News and Updates: Keep your audience in the loop with the latest happenings in your industry or any significant updates related to your business. This ensures they see you as a reliable source of current information.
6. Interactive Content: Engage your audience with quizzes, polls, challenges, and contests. This not only boosts engagement but can also provide valuable insights into your audience’s preferences and behaviors.
7. Testimonials and Reviews: Share positive feedback from satisfied customers to build trust and credibility. This also encourages potential customers to make the purchase decision.
8. Thought Leadership: Share opinions, forward-thinking perspectives, or deep dives into industry trends. This positions your brand as an expert and authority in your field.
9. Entertaining Content: Light-hearted, fun content that aligns with your brand voice can be a refreshing change for your audience. This can include memes, fun videos, or even parodies related to your industry.
10. Community Building: Engage directly with your followers by spotlighting community members, hosting Q&A sessions, or creating content that fosters a sense of belonging. This encourages brand loyalty and a stronger community around your brand.

SocialBee makes it especially easy to establish your content pillars. Through its insightful analytics, you can easily identify your content pillars while analyzing how well your posts are performing.

Use the 4-1-1 Rule to Diversify Your Content Mix

As mentioned above, the 4-1-1 rule has become a staple when it comes to content creation. 

According to this rule, for every six posts you create on your social media channels four should either entertain or educate, one should be a “soft sell,” and one should be a “hard sell”. 

Here’s what each post type means:

• Entertaining – Share lighthearted content, such as memes, trivia, or inspirational quotes.
• Educational – Create tutorials, how-to videos, or articles that can be valuable to your audience.
• Soft Sell – Discuss promotions, special offers, or events without trying to sell. For example, showcasing a new product or service in a subtle way.
• Hard Sell – Highlight the advantages of a product or service, use strong calls-to-action, or offer limited-time deals to encourage sales.

5. Establish Guidelines for Your Social Media Strategy

Before your social media team starts creating a content strategy, it’s important to establish some basic guidelines first. Once you decide to follow clear guidelines, your social media activities will remain consistent with your overall business objectives. 

Here are three examples of social media strategy guidelines:

• Find your tone of voice
• Define your visual identity
• Prioritize community management

A. Find Your Tone of Voice

Finding your tone of voice can improve your social media marketing efforts. How? By establishing you as an industry expert and making you instantly recognizable across your chosen channels.

Answer the questions below to find your brand’s tone of voice: 

• Consider your brand’s personality:
  • What core values and principles define my brand?
  • How would I describe my brand’s personality in a few adjectives?
  • How do I envision my target audience perceiving my brand?
  • What feelings and emotions do I aim to evoke through my content?
• Get inspired by other brands:
  • How are my competitors conveying their message and brand voice online?
  • What reactions and engagement are they receiving from their audience?
  • Are there aspects of their tone or style that resonate with me?
  • How can I differentiate my brand while still aligning with industry norms?
• Keep your target audience in mind:
  • Who is my ideal customer, and what are their preferences and expectations?
  • How can my content address their needs and interests directly?
  • What language and incentives would be most compelling to them?
  • How can I communicate with them confidently and authentically?

B. Define Your Visual Identity

Brands can easily reinforce their visual identity across any given social media platform by consistently using visuals that complement their brand’s identity. 

To start, add your logo to each social media graphic you intend to post, use your company colors, fonts, and search for some fitting photographs or illustrations that will give you a unified look across your channels. 

Create high-quality visuals in Canva directly from the SocialBee app.

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SocialBee makes this easy to achieve, thanks to the Canva integration we have in place. Design visuals directly from our platform and obtain a consistent and instantly recognizable look and feel for your brand on all of your social media accounts.

C. Don’t Forget About Community Management

Doing proper community management can be a challenge, even for the most established brands. Unsure where to start? We have some tips for you!

Here are three community management best practices:

• Encourage engagement – Encourage engagement by asking questions, hosting giveaways and contests, or collaborating with industry influencers. This will get more people talking about you and your brand. 
• Have a great attitude – It’s important to understand who your target audience is so that you can speak their language. Then, make sure to always have a respectful and friendly approach. No one appreciates a brand that uses a patronizing tone. Instead, aim to connect and build relationships with them by consistently keeping them engaged and on their toes.
• Provide timely replies – Remaining active on each platform can be the recipe for success. Always make sure to promptly respond to comments and messages, follow relevant influencers in your industry, and publish posts consistently by using a content calendar.

SocialBee allows you to monitor and reply to all your mentions, comments, and DMs from one place so you can keep your audience happy with timely replies.

How to Craft Your Entire Social Media Content Strategy with SocialBee

Crafting your entire social media content strategy with SocialBee is worth it because it eliminates the time-consuming tasks from your workflow and helps you manage all your social accounts from one dashboard.  

With SocialBee, you can easily create a content calendar that aligns with your business goals, manage your team, and monitor your content performance in real-time.

I. Creating Your Social Media Strategy Automatically with SocialBee’s Copilot

The importance of a robust social media strategy is undeniable in today’s digital age. Yet, many brands and individuals find it challenging to know where to begin, what content to use, when to post, or even which platforms to prioritize. 

SocialBee’s Copilot simplifies the process of strategically planning your social media posting. How? Find out below!

What Is SocialBee’s Copilot?

SocialBee’s Copilot is an AI-driven social media manager tailored to your needs. Whether you’re a novice unsure of where to begin or a veteran looking for a fresh strategy, Copilot stands ready to guide you. 

Upon creating a new account with SocialBee, users can opt for onboarding via the Copilot, ensuring a smoother initiation process.

How Does the Copilot Work?

The genius of Copilot lies in its responsiveness to user input. 

First, to start crafting your strategy, the system initiates by asking a series of questions to grasp your brand or personal profile better.

Let Copilot build your social media strategy from scratch.

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Then, based on your detailed responses, it suggests:

• Suggested social platforms: Copilot recommends platforms that resonate with your goals. For instance, for professional networking, LinkedIn might be suggested. Simply connect to the platforms you deem fit.
• Content categories: Depending on your brand’s voice and objectives, Copilot presents categories like ‘Behind-the-Scenes Stories’ or ‘Engaging Posts’. While the tool provides popular suggestions, users can also add or remove categories based on their preferences.
• Tailored posting plan: Copilot curates a posting schedule, factoring in your content categories. Each category then has individual posts scheduled sequentially. Users retain the flexibility to modify this schedule or add new time slots as they deem fit.
• Drafted posts: One of the standout features is Copilot’s ability to generate post drafts for each content category. After reviewing, users can select the posts they wish to use. Additionally, each post comes with AI-generated prompts for images, which can be utilized in the platform’s AI post generator.

Step-by-Step Guide to Using Copilot

Find out how to get started with SocialBee’s AI social media manager:

1. Begin by signing up for a free SocialBee account or logging in.
2. Navigate to the Copilot tab from the left-side menu.
3. Specify whether you’re crafting a strategy for an individual or a company.
4. Answer a set of 8 targeted questions, providing detailed responses for better outcomes.
5. Once done, click on ‘Generate’ to get your strategy. If you wish to change your inputs, opt for ‘Clean inputs’.

II. Planning Your Social Media Strategy Manually Within SocialBee

Do you want to set your strategy manually? Then, let’s get started!

Here are the 10 steps when crafting your entire social media content strategy with SocialBee:

1. Sign up for a free SocialBee account.
2. Connect your social media accounts to SocialBee.
3. Invite team members and assign roles.
4. Create content categories for all your content pillars.
5. Set a posting schedule for your content categories.
6. Organize your hashtags in collections.
7. Create your content in batches.
8. Design & import your visuals from SocialBee.
9. Monitor your social media analytics.
10. Adjust and improve your strategy.

1. Sign Up for a Free SocialBee Account

First things first, you should create a SocialBee account. Luckily, the 14-day free trial is waiting for you with open arms. 

Here are the steps to creating a free SocialBee account:

• Click the “Sign Up here” link
• Enter your email address and create a strong password
• Enjoy our 14-day free trial

2. Connect Your Social Media Accounts to SocialBee

The next step would be to choose the social media platforms you want to connect to SocialBee. 

Right now, SocialBee allows you to connect your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Business Profile, TikTok, YouTube, and Bluesky accounts and manage them from one place.

Manage your social media presence from one place: SocialBee!

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Here’s how you can connect your social media accounts to SocialBee:

• After creating your account, the Onboarding Wizard will prompt you to connect your first social media profile
• If you skipped the initial onboarding, go to Dashboard
• Under “Connect a new profile”, select your desired social media platform
• Authorize SocialBee’s access to your account
• Start creating, posting, and scheduling content to your profile/page/group like a pro