"It’s all in a day’s work.” You’ve heard that before haven’t you? Well, social media is all your day’s work. It means that having an online presence is expected and there is nothing worse than falling short of your visitors’ expectations. I have been told by clients that they “do” social media. If you “do” social media, there is a good chance that your efforts are just as good as using a toothbrush to open a soup can.

So where do you start? Easier said than done, I know. But if you break down your social efforts into phases, you won’t be overwhelmed—heck, you might even enjoy it (or hire a strategist to get it done wink wink)! Whether it is yourself, your team or hiring an outside freelancer or consultant, this process will enable you to achieve your social media goals in a progressive order.

Phase 1: Polish Your Profile

When creating a profile on various platforms, all information should be relevant & up-to-date. Incorporate keywords and terms to organically improve your SEO. Think of how visitors would search for your business. What would they be typing in and what words would they identify with? Don’t go overboard. Speak human—everyone else does.

Visual marketing is dominating the internet. But if you are going to incorporate images and videos, they MUST be high resolution and properly sized. Nothing is more of a turn-off and trigger for increasing your bounce rate than poor quality images, videos, logos, buttons, etc.

Phase 2: Monitor Your Following

What good is sending a tweet if the only people following you are robots? That’s right, you have to have real people listening to have a conversation. Monitor who follows you so you can build a strong audience who actually care what you have to say. Don’t be a Hollaback Girl and follow just anyone. Remember your strategy and ask yourself:

1. Who is my target market?

2. Who would I like to see commenting on my posts?

3. Who would care about the topics I am writing about?

There are over 900 social media platforms across the world. They can all coexist because each platform serves a different purpose. Identify who you want each social platform to talk to. Create buyer personas for each platform so your target audience and content will differ—as it should.

Phase 3: Create Consistent Content

Please do not copy your posts across all platforms! Not every form of content is going to work for every platform. This means, look at each platform and its audience related to your business. What is the reason why those people are visiting those social sites? Create content that your audience cares about, wants to interact with and can consume on their terms.

Work closely with your creative teams to produce assets both dynamic and evergreen. Create a schedule for assets needed so your teams aren't slammed with last-minute requests or changes. Creative assets will bring your content pieces to life so treat them as so. Take your time and build great content. There is no rush to be the first one to tweet in the AM (no matter what the statistics show, your audience is what matters).

Phase 4: Implement Automated Workflows

Automation is key to social success because there are so many different moving parts. Finding content, responding to questions, building your following, commenting on other blogs, etc... Implementing workflows saves time with the daily management of your social networks.

Workflow translates to "if this happens then what". For instance, if you get a new follower, a direct message is automatically sent to them. Having a repetitive process ensures every mention doesn’t go unnoticed. This will also help you filter potential leads accordingly to their movement and involvement with your social platforms. Automation allows you insight into the activity of each visitor landing on your site, where they came from and the time spent on each page.

Phase 5: Build Templates for Analytics

 This is HUGE! Many businesses feel social media doesn’t generate leads or ROI but how can you know this if you are not measuring your efforts? The only way to know if social media is worth your investment of time and money is to actually know! Numbers don’t lie. Reviewing analytics will also tell you what platforms make the most sense for your business. If you are spending 80% of your time on Facebook but Twitter is actually driving website traffic, you might want to shift your efforts to focus more on Twitter.

Based on what you consider to be ROI, there are numerous metrics that can be important to your business. Creating an analytics template will allow you to get the temperature of your business, that piece of content or that campaign in a snapshot type of way. Know what moves the needle in your business and consistently monitor those metrics. No need to go into Google Analytics and sift through pages and pages of data. Knowing what metrics are important to you or picking the metrics you want to measure will also provide clarity in the tool that you should be using. Is Sprout Social better for your business than Google Analytics? Should you invest in a marketing automation tool that concentrates on the same metrics that you find important. Or can you manage using the social platforms’ analytics just fine?

1. Identify what is important to your business that affects the bottom line.

2. Establish the tool that will get you those metrics.

3. Measure the changes over a period of time.

4. Make social decisions based on numbers.

 Wrap-Up

Executing your social media strategy shouldn’t make you go grey or be represented by a few posts a month telling followers to check out your website. Whether you are a real estate agent, small retailer shop or a Fortune 500 company, having a strategy and purpose behind those posts are key to maximizing your ROI. And when I say ROI…actually I will leave that topic for another post.