How to Create Strategies for SMM?

Hello Friends, welcome to Learnvern.

In the last topic we learnt how to write creatively on social media. And how brands are able to manage their social media pages.

Let us move on to today's session. In this unit we will learn what social media strategy is.

How to create a social media strategy?

And how can you create a social media strategy for your page?

With the help of examples, we will also see the brands that follow strategies and how it helps them in generating more engagement.

You have already set up social media pages, for example

you want to do freelancing on social media or

you are managing a brand page or

you are managing a personal brand page,

you want to create a personal brand

So the very first step is to set up a social media page that we have already learnt in our previous session. So I hope you have done it and your social media page is ready.

Now after setting up your social media page comes the question - what will you post there?

Should you be posting :

Reels or

Photos or

Something else

We will learn more about it as we proceed to learn further.

How to create an effective content strategy?

This slide is in fact the most important slide of this module.

Social media strategy is made up of 3 pillars.

Which are they?

The first one is “Educate”

Where we educate our users about our product, domain,about our overall product category.

The second one is “Engage”

And the third one is “Promote”

Let us in our upcoming slides understand the meaning and importance of these 3 pillars.

Educate: this domain talks only about education

It educates the users about the USP’s of the product.

Unique selling proposition.

Why is my product better than others? It gives information related to this.

This domain content can also be extended to industry categories.

I frequently talk about Covid as an example as it is the recent one and many brands have discussed about it on digital platforms

I recall when covid had affected the country, the hand wash category brands used to: frequently talk about sanitization,

Frequently talk about washing hands

They use to frequently talked about germs

So they were directly talking about hand wash but along with that they also talked about how this category is moving ahead in liquid hand washing.

You can also talk about your domain USP’s

All these content falls under the pillar “Educate”

Lastly, you can publish a lot of posts related to awareness.

All this content falls under the genre of Educate.

For example some ongoing topics like that of Covid

So posts related to Corona,

sanitization related posts,

How to sneeze

How to keep hands

How to wear mask

All these things were focused towards educating people

In this above example if you see, you will realise that you were not trying to sell anything. The example that is there is only trying to educate the audience. You were only trying to help users get educated.

Let us with the help of examples understand more about this pillar “Educate”, how it looks and what do brands want to talk about.

As you can see from my slide, I have shared the post of Parachute Advansed.

Parachute Advansed has introduced a series named “Cocopedia”.

Let us understand what they were trying to do in Cocopedia

They were trying to share the benefits of coconut oil with their fans.

As you can see on the left hand side of the screen.

Coconut oil penetrates 10 layers deep to make your hair stronger.

Parachute as a brand is well known for oils in India especially for its coconut oil.

It enjoys and controls a high market share in this segment.

This cocopedia series was trending for a very long time as I was personally following it  too.

And this series was only building awareness for coconut oil.

 Similarly if you look at the right post on the screen, in that post also it talks about coconut oil prevents protein loss in bleached hair and UV treated hair.

So again the main objective here is to make people aware of the benefits of coconut oil.

They had also introduced one more series and that was “Myth versus Fact”

Again if you see on my screen, on the left hand side:

Myth - oil is not needed if you use conditioner

This is a myth. Many believe that oil is not required at all if you use a conditioner. This is a myth.

The actual fact is Conditioner doesn't get absorbed in the scalp. Scalp doesn't absorb the conditioner.

Coconut oil penetrates inside and thus makes the hair healthier.

If you see in the above series, they haven't tried to sell their coconut oil.

If you see below there is the bottle of parachute advansed. You can see “Gold” which is their variant. But nowhere are they showcasing that they are the best coconut oil, neither are they talking about buying it from amazon.

Their only intention is to educate their users or the audience about the myth and the fact.

So this genre educates their end users.

Similarly on the right is a very valuable post “The Wide tooth comb”

So this is about the comb that we use for hair.

“Easy detangling, gentle on scalp, and perfect for monsoon”

So they are trying to tell us to use a wide tooth comb as it will not have side effects on your hair and scalp.

Let us take one more example to help us understand in depth that there are many such brands that develop content to educate the users, the audiences.

Head and Shoulders - a global shampoo brand

I have taken its example

The way coconut oil, the Parachute advansed had published a content on myth versus reality.

In the same way, Head and Shoulders too published content on myth versus reality.

So as you can see from my slide :

They have posted a myth related to dandruff and then they posted a reality too mentioning what actually the reality is.

Similarly on the right hand side you can see :

Dandruff is seasonal - this is a myth

The actual reality is - dandruff is a skin allergy which can reoccur regardless of the season.

This is the actual reality according to Head and Shoulders.

So there are many such brands, FMCG brands or the brands of other industries too that have a prominent educate segment.

If you recall, in our previous units where we discussed Linkedin, I had shared an example of Adobe Max. The objective of this brand was to educate as many users as possible about the tools, by which they will get to know more about how creative their software is.

The next example we shall take now to understand more about this is Zandu.

I am sure you must have heard about this brand “Zandu”

Zandu balm is well known and famous.

If you see the page of Zandu on the left side of my screen.

It is about Zandu care.

This is their facebook page

When covid rate was high, they had posted such carousels

Like what all should you be taking care of

For example:

Avoid handshakes

Do not touch your nose

So Zandu was pushing such educational content for the users.

And as you see on the right, they had also posted about what all one should keep in mind if any member of the family is tested positive.

So in this way you can post educational content on social media.

Lifebuoy - We saw that there are 3 pillars: educate, engage and promote. So at times brands publish content that talks about any 2 pillars together. Like some brands post content on educate and promote together, you can also follow this strategy.

So how do you do this?

First, you will particularly educate your users about the product - like why is your product better.

And along with that you gave a link of “Buy Now”

So what did you do?

You used 2 strategies together.

So one could be that you only publish content on “educate” - this is one of the strategies

And the second type of strategy is where along with educating them, you are also promoting it. Thus after getting educated on a product if the user gets motivated to seek more information or maybe the user wants to purchase the product itself then definitely is an advantage for your brand.

So getting back to our example of Lifebuoy, as you can see - Lifebuoy claims that it is 99.9% effective against the Covid - 19 coronavirus.

This is a post they had published.

So basically a survey was conducted which they have mentioned below in an asterisk

Let us move to our next genre, next pillar “Engage”

Social media is a 2 way communication platform.

It is a platform where if you post, people are sure to react.

Thus it is a 2 way platform where if you post something, people express or react with feedback.

May it be a youtube video

May it be a facebook post

May it be an instagram reel

Or an instagram story

Users, your followers or any general public - can view your content, can comment on it and can also share feedback on it.

So let us look at what is the motive of this particular genre.

This domain is focused on creating content that is aimed at generating more and more engagement.

Engagement here means more interactions

Engagement here means more comments

Engagement means more and more emoticons, emojis

Some or the other way your audience is interacting with you, sharing their feedback with you

So such content creation is the focus of this genre.

What type of posts can we have in this?

In this, we can have various types of posts.

It can have contests

Giveaways

Infact it can have special days

It can have Festive wishes

It can have packs as well

So all of these fall under Engage

I manage pages of brands and so I would like to share a tip with you, something I practice the most. And that is:

 I ask a lot of open-ended questions.

What are open-ended questions?

Open-ended questions are like:

What do you like the most?

What is your favourite drink?

Someone will say its tea

Someone will answer its coffee

And someone will say its juice

And some may even say its a soft drink

So this is called an open-ended question where the answer from the users will differ person to person.

Got it?

Then we can also have close-ended questions.

For example - I post an image and I ask my audience whether you are a tea lover or a coffee lover.

So I have given them a close-ended caption where they have a fixed set of choices and they have to select from them.

Now we can have a situation where you need to break an ice, you need to start an interaction

So what is the best way to do it?

The best way is to ask a question.

Similarly, the same thing works on social media as well

The more you ask questions to your audience, the more beneficial it will be for the brand.

The probability of receiving more comments on it increases.

Let us understand about brands with the help of examples. Let us see what brands are doing in this Engage category.

Surf Excel had run a very interesting campaign during Covid days and that was “Daag Gharpe Rahenge”

And what they did was they reached many homes where users were engaged in a lot of activities. They went ahead and recorded those activities, showcased those activities. Infact many people recorded their own videos and shared and team edited those content and then posted them on the social media channels.

This was indeed a very engaging campaign where they used this hashtag “daag gharpe rahenge”

And they showcased all those stories that were being shared by the people.

There is an engaging channel “TTT - terribly tiny tales1”

It is a great storytelling community

I suggest you check out their facebook page

It is a big community with millions of followers on their facebook page

So Parachute collaborated with TTT and they published stories.

As you can see on my screen, on the left side

“35 and single. Sitting in her corner office, she smiles twirling the one strand of hair around her finger.

She knows it's the only ring she needs.”

How engaging story it is

Similarly many such engaging stories they had published.

So you can even think of such a type of content by which you can engage your end user.

They received a lot of comments on this and also many likes on this particular post.

So such posts are very interesting and very engaging.

There is an interesting story on the right as well.

“My hair whispers a shy “I love you” every time they fall on my face. I reply “me too” by softly tucking them behind my ears”

This is a very engaging, realistic and a practical story. Most of the females must be doing this way.

So this is an example of Engage.

Let us look at “Festive Special occasion post “

The focus here as well is not on selling the product.

As on the right you can see “Happy Father’s Day” post

And on the left Dettol has published a post of “happy Mother’s day”

So the focus areas of the above 2 posts are also of “Engage”

Then Parachute had run a very interesting campaign. It was called “Champi Conversation”

When a mother is applying hair oil on the scalp and hair of her child, may it be her son or daughter, then in such a scenario what kind of conversations takes place between the mother and her child. They had portrayed it in a very interesting way and they had portrayed this using comic strip, cartoon strips which was appreciated by a lot of people.

You can check out the left side of my screen, the conversation between the 2.

“Di, kal late ho jayega, extra physics ka lecture hai”

“Physics, woh toh cancel ho gaya”

“Yup… Verma sir had called. So, I guess the extra class is all about Chemistry haan…”

So this was a “Champi conversation” not between the mother and daughter but this was between 2 sisters.

Now if you see the example on the right,

“Aaj itna chup chap kyun baitha hai”

“Ek baat bolun, papa ke paas mat chale jana”

“Mujhe lag hi raha tha, kuch baat hai kya, koi result aya?”

“Vo mujhse gaadi pe kuch scratches lag gaye hain”

“Vaise tujhse pehle maine bhi kuch scratches …………”

Then she stopped.

The real time conversations that take place at any home, this was an example of one such conversation. Very interesting examples of Parachute, isnt it?

If you visit the facebook page of Parachute, then you will get to see all these conversations.

One specific skill that I had discussed in my previous units, that if you have to become a better social media marketer, a better digital marketer then it is very very important for you to observe brands.

Start observing what people are publishing, what the brands are publishing and also observe is it working in their favour or not

The more you observe, the better content you will be able to create.

“MOTHER DAIRY”

I hope you recall, that when we go to a theatre to watch movies, an ad was always shown to us and that was:

“My name is Mukesh. I used to smoke a lot. Then i was diagnosed with mouth cancer”

This ad led to the creation of a lot of MEMEs in the “MEME community” and “DROOL community”.

So “Mother Dairy” had showcased one such ad.

You can see on my screen, on the left side is their content. It is a content in the form of text only.

“Mera naam Mukesh hai aur mein sirf Chai peeta hun”

This was a quirky ad, a very humorous ad.

They had published this ad on a “National Cancer Awareness day”

And when Sundar Pichai was announced as the CEO of Google, that time too they had posted:

“Congratulations, iss baat pi chaiiii ho jaye”

This also was a very quirky, very humorous content published by them.

These are also called “Moment Marketing”.

We will learn about this in detail in our upcoming sessions.

Last genre that we will now talk about is “Promote”

What does this genre do?

This genre talks just about business

Right?

We have set up social media but if we don't talk about anything related to business then the entire effort will go to waste.

So somewhere or the other, we will need to publish business related content too. Otherwise you will say, I did the education part, I did the engagement part despite that I did not get any sales. We are running an ecommerce store, so we need sales too

So this “Promote” will generate sales for you

Its work is to produce such content that is sales driven, that is leads driven. So all such content falls under the “Promote” genre.

We can talk about existing product categories.

We can talk about offers

We can talk about “Buy now” links

If you are launching a new product then you can talk about that as well in “Promote” content

Let us understand how “Promote” works with the help of some examples.

Alpenliebe had published: “Presenting New Alpenliebe hi-milk”

This is a very good example of Alpenliebe launching its new product.

Similarly, Dettol had also launched its new product at the time of Covid.

On the left if you see, this is a “teaser post” as here they have just teased their audience they are planning a movement against germs and that movement is to start from 16th Dec.

And on the right, when it was 16th Dec, they launched their product.

So such new product launches fall under the “Promote” category.

Again this is a product promotion post. From this post, the brand’s placement, the product’s placement is very clearly visible. Even if you check their text that has been posted, you will find “Buy Now” links there too.

So their focus is clear that you as an audience, as a user check their products, explore their products and later on purchase them too.

One more product promotion - as you can see on the right .

“Buy Now” and the short link of Amazon is pasted here

So they want you to visit amazon by clicking on this link to purchase the product.

A while ago I had shared that you can create content by combining the Educate and the Promote genres together.

Here is an example of Himalaya for the same

They have a green tea named “Real Tulsi”.

They first educated us about its advantages.

As you can read from my screen - it boosts immunity, it boosts respiratory health

And if you wish to know more about it in detail then you may click on this link.

This link will basically encourage you to try this product and also purchase this product.

Alpenliebe had run a campaign with Mr. Boman Irani, where they had published a teaser post.

“Why this face, Boman? Stay Tuned for an exciting twist!”

With just this content, they published the post and left it there.

Later they launched their new product: “Introducing Alpenliebe Chatpata”

So now we understand why Mr. Boman was making such a face, the reason was the taste. The taste of Alpenliebe was Spicy (Chatpata means Spicy).

That is all for today.

If you have any questions related to Social media strategy, then you can write to us at forums.learnvern.com. Our expert team will answer your questions as soon as possible.

In the next unit we will learn about what Moment Marketing is and how it works and also how brands work.

Moment Marketing is my personal favourite, so stay tuned and watch my next video.

Good Bye.