4 Steps: Social Media (Steemit) Strategy

 Unlike a few years ago the digital space has developed into a growing economy, with many (growing) online platforms, that it can get quite overwhelming. It is important to decide on and stick to a clear social media strategy that works best for you, meaning that your strategy will be unique according to your audience and purpose.  

As some of you might know, for the past months I've been increasingly busy with the agency and upcoming projects (announcements coming soon), that I had to re-organize my strategy, which I did in the last few days in order to be more efficient with my time and be able to still consistently connect with my audience from other platforms as well as connect them with Steemit.
 

SO I have decided to share the strategy with you and I invite you to take advantage of it, copy and optimize it, and hopefully it will save you time, grow your reach and help grow Steemit.
In order to stay consistent with publishing content and engaging with your community, I believe that it is essential to: 

Follow a pattern!

If you have a Homepage:  Use it as the connecting point and summary. You homepage in 2017 should link to all your social media and serve the purpose to very clearly showcase/identify your brand, personal or business.

1. Main Site: This is where you display most information, extended captions and full videos/vlogs. Your main site could be your own blog on your website, or a blogger site like Medium, Tumblr, or much better (not biased at all)… STEEMIT!  

2. Brand Site: Choose your strongest/favorite Social Media Platform/Application, where you have the largest active follower base and audience. This could be a network platform like Facebook, or in my case a visual platform such as Instagram. I suggest choosing a visual platform, because this is where you represent your brand, give short introductions with every post you publish and refer to your main site. Your brand site is going to be the number one connecting point, the gate and frame. Your brand site always has to link to your main site, for those interested in reading/seeing MORE.

3. Personal Channel: Decide on 1-max. 2 personal channel. This is where you most directly communicate with your audience. Now that LIVE has become a new feature, choosing a live network is a fitting option here. The personal channel should require least effort and allows for spontaneous recording. Examples: Snapchat; YouNow; Twitch; 

4. Business Channel: Decide on 1- max. 2 business channel, where you strictly give updates on your business, launches, news, conferences etc.

When deciding on the fitting platforms for you, it is important to look at the amount of reach, the format as well as the target audience and the appropriate content accordingly. The range of social media differs in its use. Just like on TV, there are different channels that each serve a different purpose and completely differ in their formats, social media is nothing else, but the modern television 2.0. Some social networks are based on social relationships, through visual communication. Others serve business networking and again others social video networking.  

I see many people, especially with their business, make:

Two huge mistakes!

1. Same content everywhere

They either make the mistake to copy and paste the same exact content in the same exact format on every social media out there. The problem about that is that when taking the previous example of television and its channels, that you cannot do a news report on nickelodeon, because the people who are most likely to watch nickelodeon are children, so the content must be appropriate. It’s also unlikely that you will see people cursing on CNN, but on MTV it’s different, because the format and audience is a different one. Sounds like common sense right?  But that principle also applies to all social media platforms. They are different channels, with their own unique rules and target audience. 

Then there are the people who try to be everywhere at the same time. 

2. The other huge mistake is trying to switch between channels. 

If you try to build a network on all those platforms, you will soon give up because of the amount of time it requires. Especially right now where more and more platforms are gaining popularity it can get confusing, knowing where you should be and where it's just a waste of time for you.
The other day I was watching a video (one of my fave marketers, you probably know) of Gary V. and he made me re-realize that spending time on creating content isn’t the right approach and who has the time to spend hours on the creation of content when you have a million other things to do that are way higher on your priority list?  So instead of forcefully trying to create content, just document. Now that live has become "a thing" you can use it to save time and still create content. Read more about this LIVE trend on my previous blogpost -> here

Here is a short summary (and example) of some of the most important platforms and a list for you to choose from:
Social-relationship-networks:  

• Facebook 
• Google+

Social-visual-networks (micro-blogging):  

• Instagram
• Pinterest
• Snapchat

 Blogging-networks:  

• Twitter 
• Tumblr

Video networks:

• Youtube 
• Vimeo

LIVE-Streaming (emotional connection to audience): 

• Instagram 
• Facebook  
• Youtube  
• Twitch  
• YouNow

Professional networks:

•  XING
• LinkedIn
  

The platforms you choose not only highly depend on your audience and content, but also on the format you feel comfortable with. Think about what takes you least time and effort.

There are only 4 Formats in which you can create. Label them accordingly to preference and make use of them. If you are best at speaking, but not necessarily in front of a camera, audio might be your main format. Now if Instagram (a visual platform) is your Main Site, you could think about creating beautiful images (a nice pattern) and turn the image, when clicked on into a podcast.

A list of the formats:

1. Written
2. Visual
3. Audio
4. Video

When it comes to myself, I have re-actived my Instagram where I upload 1-2 images a day with a short-medium long description. Whoever is interested in the extended version will have to go to Steemit. I’ve tried the live functions on Instagram Live, Facebook Live, YouNow, Twitch and musically. I held a couple of webinars in my Facebook groups, analyzed my Snapchat friends and finally recorded Vlogs that will be published on Steemit, via Youtube. There are many different ways on how to structure this, I've found my ways for now that convert most people into interested people and those into new members of the Steemit community.

My new social media structure:

I hope this was helpful! I can't wait for this lovely community to see all that I've been up to.  

I would love to know, what is your favorite or most active social media platform (besides Steemit)?

________

Much love,

- Mrs.Steemit