Q: What is the Secret of Social Media Success?

A: Control, consistency and content.

Let’s be cheesy and call it the Three C’s of Social Success for businesses (we can even create a fancy graphic to illustrate a blog post about the Three C’s).

We can probably add a fourth: Creativity. But for now let’s stick with the Three C’s.

The fancy graphic.

Control

Control means have a strategic plan with a tactical processes built in underneath.  It means having goals and objectives for what your brand is hoping to accomplish on social media channels.  This can be anything for driving online sales to strengthening loyalty among customers.

One huge mistake brands make on social media is a lack of control. They have disparate social media channels all being operated by different departments.  Marketing has a Twitter page.  Communications is running a blog.  Human resources have a Facebook page for job openings and career guidelines.

It’s a hot mess.  There’s no overlying strategic framework.  There’s no consistent set of guidelines and the channels are acting independently instead of in concert.

In other words, the buck stops nowhere.  Getting control of a brand’s social media is job one.

Consistency

The hardest part of social media is consistency.  Creating rich, dynamic content during a campaign or product launch is great, but what about all the time between campaigns and launches?

What are you posting, tweeting and Facebooking about then?

What is your engagement plan for a run of the mill Monday in April?

The key to being consistent is keeping a social media editorial calendar.  This is a monthly schedule of activity integrated with ongoing news, events and promotion in communications and marketing.  It aligns your content with holidays, seasons, special events and company milestones.

An editorial calendar is a forcing function for content – allowing you to integrate creative ideas into social media on an every day basis. It provides the consistency necessary to be successful on social channels.

Content

Social media demands content.  We all know that.  But content comes in many formats: blog posts, tweets, infographics, slide shows, ebooks, status updates, polls, videos, photographs…  The list can go on and on.

Most brands aren’t built for creating dynamic, multimedia content. They are rooted in traditional methods of sharing information: press releases, fact sheets and white papers.  The key – after consistency – is to understand how content works on each of your social platforms and to have a process in place for creating and syndicating it.

This means getting the right equipment, training people to use it, and putting standards and practices in place to make creating the content part of the process.

What are your best practices?  What do you think the secret of social media success is for businesses?

Links:

Consistency is Crucial in Social Media

5 Reasons Why Businesses Struggle with Content