Refresh Your Feed: 4 Steps to Reset Your Social Media Anytime

Whether you are a social pro or not, 2020-21 has rewritten quite a few of the long-standing social media rules. Now more than ever, companies are being asked to do more than post a funny photo on National Coffee Day. Brands are now expected to take stances, be intensely transparent about their culture and loosen the reigns around how they interact with their online community. The B2B space on social media hasn't been immune to these changes, so here are four facets of your social media you should consider refreshing as this incredible year comes to a close.

Rethink Your Voice (or make sure you have one to start with)

If your firm's marketing team hasn't taken a look at the key messaging and voice for social media in a while, or ever, you must start there. Where to start? Take a look at your analytics and do a deep dive into who is following you and create a high-level persona for each network where you have a presence. Are your followers industry peers? Former clients? Find out and start thinking about how you want to communicate with that group. Social media is often written in a general voice to please anyone who might scroll by, but the strongest voices know who they are talking to. Spend an hour learning who your followers are and then think about the resources and content they are interested in and begin to build your relationship with them.

Are You Everywhere You Want to Be?

A common misconception is that your business should have representation on every social media network. But should you really? I tell my clients to first look at their industry and identify which networks they tend to see the most information shared on. Where are your clients the most active? Your vendors or future employees? In B2B, LinkedIn – which grew to almost 700 million users in 2020 – is where professionals not only want to interact and the platform has added new features left and right to make give users more opportunities to form genuine connections. So what do you do with that dormant Twitter that hasn't tweeted since 2017? Let it go or invest the time to develop a strategy to give it purpose. Do a social media audit to identify all active social media accounts and then decide where your brand will make the most impact. Be where your future clients and industry community are so you can be part of the conversation.

Get Graphic

One recurring trend that shows no signs of slowing down is nostalgia. As we all Zoomed in slippers this year, social media became a place to rediscover vintage TV shows, share childhood photos and relive small comforting memories of the past. It's a sweet reminder that social media can be a place of connection, not just a marketplace or where you debate family members about politics. That said, nostalgic is not how you should feel about your graphics for social media. Are you using that same frame, color palette or Canva template from 2018? Break free! While you should thread your branding through everything you produce, social media is where you can experiment, try out new ideas and have fun with your brand. Need to prove it to your team? Build a creative campaign and test your audience (even poll them directly if you want to) with some new graphics and track the response. It might just help unlock a new part of your content strategy or lead to refreshing your firm's digital identity.

Create, Click and Share

Videos, Reels, TikTok, IG Live, are just a few of the ways you can host fireside chats or host a conference this year. Visual content is the content that network algorithms are putting their weight behind, and users can't get enough. For some marketers, creating video content is daunting unless they have the right tools and access to projects or people to interview. What is a social media manager to do? Hubspot and Talkwalker just released their "2021 Social Media Trends Report" and reported that user-generated content drives 28% more engagement than standard brand-led content. Marketers predict that "remixing" content with music, artful editing and sharing content from clients, employees and industry organizations will dominate in 2021. Remixing makes it easier to plan out your calendar as static content (photos or infographics) can be converted into video with simple apps. Social media etiquette obviously dictates that you collaborate and give the original creators credit to keep your community growing and your reputation squeaky clean.  

Along with these suggestions for elevating your social media strategy going into 2021, the biggest lesson everyone online has learned is that being transparent, human and honest is paramount to building a loyal and active community. There is a lot of misinformation and confusion online in every industry. Users want to support firms and brands that celebrate their company culture and have a mission that clearly drives every project they take on. Each recommendation here is an opportunity to step back and look for opportunities to expand your brand awareness through social media. 

Not sure where to start? Consider hiring me to perform a social media audit that will not only tell you where your profiles stand now, but I’ll create a road map for your team to use in future content calendars and make suggestions for smart tools to help social rollout more effectively. Let’s talk, meagan@themoderntake.com.