Social Media Strategy

As a part-time Social Media and Web Content Specialist for a nonprofit, my eyes have been opened to the extensive planning, preparation, and strategy behind every social media post. There is no ‘off the cuff’ posting. Everything has a purpose and has to be well thought out. This past week I’ve spent a considerable amount of time planning for this summer — which is literally months away. A lot of the time we think of social media as quick media, but companies, brands, and nonprofits spend hours prepping for the post that you will most likely view for a few seconds.

I’ve had a bunch of ideas that I have proposed to my boss in the past. While some of them have been implemented into our social media presence, a lot of them are waiting for the right timing. Something she constantly reminds me is to think of who is gonna post it, who is going to see it, what are the benefits, who is going to respond and is it worth our efforts. I’m sure you don’t necessarily ask yourself these questions when posting your summer beach vacation photos.

When considering what I’d like to do this summer, I started by creating a social media proposal document. I made sure to clearly define my project intentions, inspiration, steps to completion, benefits, and possible complications. I also started to design mockups for what these new campaigns might look like. I think it is important to have a plan ahead of time so that everything falls into place when it needs to.

I recently attended a Zoom webinar session titled ‘Social Media for Environmental Educators’. The session was only an hour-long but was rich with information and strategies for tackling social media. One of the things the speakers touched on was making sure that you create a clear timetable when creating your social media campaign plan. Are you planning to post once a week? How long is the campaign going to last? Who is going to manage the content, answer comments, and respond to DMs?

I’ve come to see that managing social media from a business perspective is very different than posting on my personal accounts. Every post, story, and video has to have a clear plan and purpose. Their are careers dedicated to social media strategy and it have become a crtitical position within organizations. Overall, social media is a valuable tool for businesses and nonprofits, but there is a lot of strategy that goes into every post.