The process of developing a social media strategy echoes many of the steps and concepts that are integral to developing a content strategy. Throughout the process, content strategists must keep in mind the audience, the user, or the consumer. From start to finish, people are what drive the necessity of a content strategy, and people are what keep a social media strategy going.
Mirroring this people-oriented approach, a successful content strategy should make the business or company appear as a human-like, or person-like entity. Below are two examples of what I mean:
“Lana Bandoim writes, “Social media engagement is often defined as the real interactions that happen on these networks.” She points out that social media engagement relies on daily interactions among users to survive. While autoposting tools are one way to communicate, more businesses are beginning to understand that engaging with their audiences in real conversations will bring them better results and add more value to their social streams.
Be available to your audience in real time, when you have have more meaningful back-and-forth conversations.”
“‘Social media is about people, not logos.’
The mechanics of social force companies to compete for attention versus your customer’s friends and family members. Thus, your company has to (at least to some degree) act like a person, not an entity.”
The first example illustrates the point that real (human) interactions are an essential part of a social media strategy. It’s impossible to curate content, schedule posts, and let social media go, hoping that it will work toward the goals of one’s business or company. It will always be necessary to have a person monitor and respond to how people are interacting with content on social media.
The second example is what I want to focus on while discussing social media strategy, the understanding that an entire company must be a fully realized being that people can interact with as such.
In Know Thyself, I write about how an organization must know who they are and what they stand for when developing a content strategy. This idea precedes and feeds into the idea that a company must “act like a person, not an entity.” Since content strategy is born of a need to engage users and consumers, the resulting product must have the capacity to interact with users and consumers, not just as content but as a representative of a business or company in a relatable form. These social media strategy authors make an argument that this relatable form must somewhat resemble a human or a person, sometimes a character of sorts. I agree.
Other social media strategy tips include how to make social media content more relatable, that content should show the passion and the voice of a company. These characteristics can be described as such for a company, making it a character in itself.
Lasamee Kettavong 