Social media is very important to nearly every business (about 92% think this this to be true, to be exact*). Since its genesis and explosion through the mid-2000s, brands have jumped on the bandwagon to leverage it for their businesses. It has proven to be another strong arm of the marketing machine.
But why does so much content suck?
There is a slough of answers for this question, but I will only wrestle with one that I feel is a very difficult issue to explain to clients: creative consistency.
To be honest, a fractured social media strategy is pretty easy to spot. Sometimes you see companies using Facebook to post branded images (good visuals with copy written across it in company fonts), while the PR department is feeding real photos and stories through Twitter and the Instagram just seems to be one guy posting random pictures around the office. All of the content may be very good and relevant but if the copy, look and tone are different, there is risk of looking sloppy.
When choosing the appropriate social channels, you need to stay consistent across these channels.
Repurposing ≠ Consistency
The simple answer is not repurposing. Sure, I understand when content concepting and ideation runs dry and many content creators (including myself) are very tempted to hit the copy and paste buttons in our social media schedulers. Yes, repurposing content has its benefits, but social channel fatigue can quickly become a reality when posting the same thing on every channel. There is a tension here because you need unique and engaging content on every channel, but you also have to produce it with consistency.
Try to avoid in-office, phone camera pictures as content
It’s always fun to take snapshots of what’s going on around your company, but be careful as far as how much of this you use as content. When “office clown John” comes in with a funny shirt and you think it warrants an Instagram post for your company’s profile, take a step back and think, “Is this really engaging to my customers? What is the benefit here?”
Beware the PR pictures
I, myself, know the benefits of PR (it was my degree in college), but be careful of how you leverage good public relations stories through your social media channels. When you have branded images and stories consistently being pushed out, it can look choppy when a post of a random picture and a huge story is attached on a Facebook post. That story is important, but consider another option without sacrificing a clear and clean social media strategy.
There are many solutions to this big problem, but my quick solution (and possibly the best solution) is a blog. This always works as a great unifier of all of your content. All content from branded images to PR pieces to product tips can all be produced and tweaked by a designer and a copywriter to give you a good, clean and consistent voice. It is your company’s content hub for production – a place for you to not only own your content but produce it professionally as well. AND, (**hint hint**) it drives people to your website. When done setting up, commence high-fiving and start producing some content!
*http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/SocialMediaMarketingIndustryReport2015.pdf
