What the hell should we do with our Social Media channels?

It’s time to navigate through the enigma that social media has become: from the shifting sands of X (you know, the platform formerly known as Twitter) where trust is as scarce as a retweet from a celebrity, to Facebook’s transformation into an exclusive club for the parental units. Instagram has become the kingdom of influencers, LinkedIn is louder than a New York City street, and TikTok? It’s under the sword of Damocles, poised for a potential ban.

Dive into our fun and practical webinar, where we peeked into the crystal ball of social media’s future as well as talked through how to construct a new approach – a modern approach – to the social media landscapes. We dissected the best strategies for thriving in the social media sphere and architecting a visionary roadmap that can help ensure your business doesn’t just ride this wave, and those that will surely follow, but become the tide itself in social media marketing.

Webinar Summary

Cathy McKnight and Robert Rose from The Content Advisory discussed the current state of social media in 2024 and provided recommendations on how companies can adapt their strategies.

Part 1: What’s Going On in Social Media Robert highlighted several key trends and changes in how social media is being used:

• Major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (now called X), LinkedIn, and TikTok are seeing shifts in usage and advertising performance
• Clickthrough rates have collapsed – users are much less likely to click on links or leave the platform
• Commenting and sharing of posts by users has significantly declined
• Users are becoming more passive consumers of content rather than active participants
• More private sharing is happening through direct messaging apps rather than public posting
• Organic reach, while still low, has slightly improved as there is less competition from personal posts
• Brands are leveraging more user-generated content and influencers/employees to drive engagement
• Social media is transitioning from a community-building focus to simply being another paid media distribution channel

Part 2: Conducting a Social Media Audit Cathy outlined a 3-step process for auditing a company’s social media presence:

1. Capture the basics for each profile: platform, handle name, URL, owner, follower counts, post frequency, and branding alignment. Also investigate employee/executive profiles, old profiles from acquired brands, and unauthorized or fake profiles.
2. Gather and analyze audience and engagement data: follower demographics, engagement rates, post types, and topics that get the most engagement.
3. Decide what to do with each profile:

• Keep: if well-aligned to strategy and getting good engagement, keep active with improvements
• Archive: if not a current priority but potentially useful in the future, keep but don’t actively post
• Delete: if outdated, misaligned, unauthorized, redundant or very low-value, consider shutting down

Part 3: Developing a New Social Strategy After completing the audit, Cathy recommended companies assess their social media strategy and consider a “reboot” if needed.

Key questions to ask about your current approach to social media marketing and content:

• Do you have a documented social media strategy aligned to business goals and target audiences?
• Is your content tailored for each platform or are you posting the same things everywhere?
• Are you proactively interacting with your audience?
• What role does social play in your overall marketing funnel?

Some specific strategic recommendations:

• Focus on social as a paid amplification channel for compelling branded content vs an organic community
• Leverage more ephemeral, “disappearing” content to create urgency and scarcity
• Put employee advocacy programs in place to humanize the brand presence
• Prioritize video content, especially short-form video
• Participate actively in niche forums/groups vs just broadcast posting

Conclusion

The key takeaway is that social media is going through a fundamental transition. Brands need to shift from an organic community-building mindset to treating social as a paid media channel for distributing strategic branded content. Auditing the current state is an important first step before developing a revamped social strategy that aligns with these new realities and trends. The Content Advisory can assist companies that need additional guidance and support with this process.