Tips From The Social Media Test Kitchen
Recently, I had an interesting catchup with a friend who is the publisher and editor of a successful print magazine in the food and beverage sector. It has beautiful photography, great writing, and covers all aspects of a local culinary scene.
I asked her about her social media presence, and her answer surprised me: “I am pretty sure we don’t do enough. And I’m not sure I even know what ‘enough’ looks like.”
They had a high-quality corporate website, paired with a company Facebook page and Twitter and Instagram account. It was feast or famine: some weeks with lots of posts, then longer periods of near radio silence. The beautiful photos, interviews, event promotion from the print edition couldn’t be better suited for social media promotion, especially Instagram, but precious little made it to the company’s social media profiles. So I asked her: Why?
I’M NOT SURE WHERE TO START:
Ask a chef and they'll say that it all starts with the best ingredients. In this case, we're talking great content, which was available in abundance! With a sizable community of fans and followers, they already had an excellent foundation to start with.
I asked her to think about how to target different types of content to each channel, and to look back and see what posts got the most traction. Rather than posting all content everywhere, or not posting at all, we brainstormed ways to make the content she had more interactive, useful, visually appealing, and better linked to key topics and events (National Tomato Day, anyone?).
I stressed the value of a solid and consistent editorial plan for social. In this case, they were already doing loads of editorial planning for print, so extending that to the socials would be an easy and quick win.
I DON'T KNOW WHICH CHANNELS I SHOULD FOCUS ON:
The answer lies in her overall objectives for her business. Is it to grow readership of the print publication and increase subscriptions? Highlight the brands that buy ads or increase ad sales? Promote events? Engage in a conversation with readers and food lovers about their likes? Be a respected voice in the local food scene? I guessed it would be some combination of all, but what mattered most to her was community - building a passionate community of foodies who would actively participate in a growing local food scene.
Setting and prioritizing objectives, and then understanding her target audience and their social behavior and "tastes" would help her make solid choices about where to be, what to post and when. In this particular case, they already had a ton of demographic data on their readership available to their advertisers. So matching their target audience to specific social channels wouldn’t be difficult.
SOCIAL MEDIA TAKES TOO MUCH TIME:
It is possible to have an active social media presence without it becoming a full-time job. The trick: automate it. Social media management tools like Sprinklr, Hootsuite or Social Studio make timing posts easy and offer great analytics (the key to understanding what content performs best). By automating some aspects of the process, she could gain more time to respond to comments and connect with her fans and followers, leading to greater engagement and overall reach.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS TOO MUCH AND WHAT IS NOT ENOUGH
My advice to my friend: let your audience tell you. And check your analytics. You may be surprised to see that the content that performs isn’t always what you think it will be. As you gain experience, tweak your editorial plan and don’t forget to experiment with new "flavors." In a low-risk subject area, you have more latitude to get creative and try new things, just like you would when cooking for friends.
Think of it like a test kitchen: pull together the best ingredients, develop the test recipe, measure results, and adapt and improvise as needed.