Ingredients For A Tasty Social Media Content Strategy

Look at the Facebook page of that e-commerce company and while you are at it, do continue browsing the pages of that cab rental company and that bank’s page as well.

What do you see? Thousands and maybe millions of fans, but if you remove the logo, all the pages (in the same category) look the same. They all continue to talk about themselves, through posts that are one way, monologue -some plain and simple and some intelligently crafted and beautifully executed.

You would easily notice that , there is no differentiation in terms of the content due to which almost all brand pages look alike and coupled with a product centric content -they seem to have lost connect with consumers eons ago.

To be fair, let’s concede that we cannot expect brands to function like a content company- so let’s not expect a magazine class content -but at the same time, let’s not make the Facebook page a place where one only disseminates product ads (in garb of a post) and some coupons intermittently. That, cannot be a content strategy!

Companies also need to think that social platforms are not places where they can simply mass- distribute their TV/Radio/Online ads. These are places where you need to interact with people , activate conversation in such a way that your users can participate, get recognised and your brand can establish trust and thought-leadership.

Another eye opener- consumers do not really care about classy, professionally created content-as much as they are influenced by casual but relevant posts which touch the chord.

At dotConverse we have an elaborate process before we create a content strategy for our clients. In a nutshell let me pull in a few aspects and share with you how we create a content strategy for our clients.

We aim to understand the key drivers that motivate our audience to use a particular category. So here are the questions that we ask before we delve into creating a content strategy:

User demographics and lifestyle- (Get Content Format & Tone From Here)

E.g. Single, works as a manager in a private sector company, in a metro city, lives in a rented appt has a small hatchback, saves for a home and marriage. Weekends are spent at home with friends over drinks and movies. Once a month goes to his native place over weekend. Active online over social networks and Whatsapp and uses mobile for access.

What are broader issues that may resonate with our consumer?
What are his life aspirations?
What are his life challenges and pain points?

(Generally the above insight is provided by the company’s Agency on Record)

Category-Product-Usage (Get your Key Content/Social Objectives From Here)

What drives a user to use this category?
What are the negatives that can drive away a user?
Why does he use our product/service? What does he accomplish? ( For e.g. Car Pool-Meeting parents, meeting friends, reaching office in time, relaxed journey etc.)

Our product- is it a special occasion use or a regular use. (For e.g. Car pool- can be used once a month to go to hometown or can be used daily to reach office or only to reach home in evening)

Touch Points & Metrics (Know what to measure against your objectives. Also get your content distribution strategy inputs & what’s working and not working + context)

What are my consumers’ touch points?
What are the key metrics
Who are the competitors and what are their communication tone, philosophy and what are the areas they are focusing on.
What are the areas where the competition is weak and have they left any area unaddressed. (e.g. user trust issues)

After the above process is accomplished, we can delve on actual content creation and synchronising content + objectives with specific platforms.

In many organisations, the above process is bypassed and a more ad-hoc, subjective and gut felt ‘strategy’ is used-which will be frustrating after a while to continue.

I hope you liked the dotConverse-Content Strategy Framework, above. I will leave you with some unique & humorous,statements that we hear from a few prospective clients- when we are called by them to undertake their social strategy-