Social Media Strategy Part 2: What to Say?

In part 1 of our social media strategy series, we talked about the importance of defining your voice across the various social media platforms. In the next few blog posts, we're going to dive into the world of content delivery, timing, tools and automation to make the most of your brand and it's social efforts.

Say What?

"I want to start using social media for my business, but I don't know what to say!" It's not uncommon for new and experienced social media users to fall short of content or things to say on a regular basis. As a brand, you have to think beyond company news and corporate initiatives because most people aren't really interested in all that [high-level] talk.

If you ever hit a dry spell, here are a few content ideas to get your wheels turning:

• Share interesting, relevant photos. Photos are content, too.
• Ask your audience questions. They will answer.
• Comment about other industry players. Spark a debate.
• Mention other users to initiate conversation.
• Talk about local happenings in your city.

Take what you say beyond your company and contribute to the social community. Publish unique content that your users will talk about, even when they're not online. For a more detailed list of possible content topics, Susan Evans at the College of William & Mary wrote a great article which you can find here.

Content Streams

Here at Climax, we set up RSS feed widgets using Google Desktop and pull in content streams from every major blog, online magazine and hub. Each day we're fed the latest industry happenings in web design, development, social media, SEO, user experience and strategy - which we then schedule to broadcast throughout our social media properties.

This could also be accomplished using Google Alerts by inputting keywords that relevant to your business and have Google send you emails whenever something new is published online that matches one of your key phrases. If you're going to use Google Alerts to set up your content stream, create a fresh Gmail account specifically for this purpose - rather than having your personal or work email flooded with alerts.

Automation and social media dashboards are naturally the last piece of the strategy puzzle, which we'll dive into more in the upcoming posts - in the meantime, pull out your pen and paper and start to map out your own social media strategy. If you missed part 1, you can read it here.