The other day, Business2Community.com published this 12-step social media checklist for social media marketers, compiled of everything that you need to be aware of before a post is published.
This goes for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and even other more traditional marketing forms, not just social media. Here’s what they had to offer in terms of a social media checklist for businesses:
- Is the message educational or entertaining?
- Is the voice correct?
- Is it too long?
- Is the URL correct?
- Should I target a specific audience with this message?
- Did I use the right keywords and hashtags to maximize exposure?
- How many times have I already posted something today?
- Did I spell check?
- Will I be okay with absolutely anyone seeing this?
- Is this reactive communication or is it well thought-out?
- Did I make the most of visual content—images, video, slides?
- Did I make the most of my update text—headline formulas, polls, quizzes?
The idea of making a checklist to vet your social media posts can be very helpful for many: What are your absolute requirements for social media posts, and how can you ensure that you remember to do all of these things before posting?
Especially if you have different people touching your social media, this can be immensely useful. And if you’re working with a social media company or team, these can be personalized to your brand so that the social media company can hit these when working on your specific content.
And there, we find the inherent fallacy in making lists like this: Is it possible that these are equally as important for every brand? There are a lot of hoops to jump through in the aforementioned list, and while many of them are important questions to ask, it’s hard to believe that every brand’s strategy will fit into these neat little boxes– in other words, this isn’t universal, and you should never be working off a universal social media set of questions. What is “too long”? Why would you not be targeting a specific audience in the first place? Why would you ever post something that you wouldn’t be okay with anyone seeing? And if you have people working on your social media that would do things like post content that they wouldn’t be okay with everybody seeing, it’s time to change those people.
Sure, checklists can be great, but it really boils down to a few key questions. If someone is copyreading and proofing your content, it should theoretically always be error free. Will this content be useful, entertaining, informative, or productive in some way for your demographic, and does it have the potential to return to you in value (whatever you’ve determined that you want the “value” you glean from social media to be)?
If that’s the case, go for it. It’s great to always use hashtags and make the most of your content, but you should never have to ask if your social media is well-thought out in the first place. Narrow down the question, and focus on what’s essential. If you have the right people on your team, it’ll make your life much simpler.
Image credit: CC by Jason Howie
