Whether the message goes from business-to-business or direct to consumer, social media is an important part of maintaining a strong brand image and promoting visibility. With 90% of businesses turning to social mediato achieve growth, more messages than ever are competing for the same audiences. In order to ensure that their messages are engaging the right prospects at the right times, brands need to embrace channels beyond Facebook and Twitter and use each one clearly and strategically.
Introducing: The Editorial Calendar
Any successful journey begins with a well-drawn map, and a potential customer’s path to purchase should be no exception. This is why we begin our creative process by developing a monthly editorial calendar for each client. In creating your editorial calendar, we break down a full content strategy by day, channel, theme and available opportunities.
Once we have established our goals and defined an appropriate target audience, we break down the buying cycle and develop an appropriate content strategy. Each month is assigned its own theme and goal, and media-specific content is planned out accordingly. Having this framework in place doesn’t merely result in more effective content, it also gives our clients time to evaluate whether or not our plan is right for them. Having content strategies planned in advance also gives our team the space to effectively incorporate new developments into your marketing mix. Rather than creating discord by jumping on each passing bandwagon, we use the themes and goals that we’ve established to direct any new media component.
Using the Calendar to Engage your Audience
It’s no secret that branded social content faces an uphill battle when it comes to gaining attention, as 1 in 4 consumers reportthat they ‘mostly’ or ‘always’ ignore a brand’s posts in their social feeds. Avoiding this pitfall is one of Vista 14’s foremost objectives in developing an editorial calendar, which is why our strategy emphasizes sharable, likable content alongside directly promotional posts. Whether they’re sales-minded or just-for-fun, when your followers are liking your posts regularly, your organic reach grows as customers begin to look out for your latest posts. Sharing original and curated content doesn’t simply give your audience something to interact with; many marketers that curate content indicate that it has increased their brand’s visibility, thought leadership, SEO, web traffic and, most importantly, buyer engagement (Curata). But in order for great content to have the right impact, customers need to be able to find it in their preferred channels. That’s why Vista 14 incorporates new and appropriate media channels as an integral part of your editorial strategy. Whether on YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn or an entirely new channel altogether, positioning your message to fit into the customer’s journey is the focal point of any new editorial calendar.
With current consumers reporting dissatisfaction with typical social media marketing, there’s a strong chance that your brand could be doing better. With our system in place, your customers won’t just have more opportunities to engage with your message, they will be presented with content that they find interesting and worthy of their attention. When a strong product or service can engage the right clientele effectively, there’s almost no limit to the growth that can be accomplished.