The 3 C's of Social Media Marketing: Overview

Having a successful social media marketing strategy requires more than just posting content to social media...when you remember to do it. There are three main ingredients that need to be present in your strategy - what I call The 3 C's of Social Media Marketing. Over the next few weeks, I'll be be taking you deeper into each of the C's, but for today, I'm just going to give you an overview of the main ingredients.

1) Consistency

One of the very first things I do when I'm coming up with a social media marketing strategy for a client is establish how often we'll be posting. This is especially important if you're handling your social media marketing yourself. 

If you haven't been very consistent with your social media postings in the past, make sure you start with an initial goal that is attainable and sustainable. You want to make sure you can keep up when things get busy. You can always ramp up and do more, but posting really frequently and then suddenly dropping off is more harmful than the reverse of not posting enough. 

You can set a general rule like 3x per week or decide that you're going to be posting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Whatever you decide, make sure it works for you.

2) Content

Once I've figured out how often we're going to be posting, I take an hour or more to brainstorm content categories. Again, this is another trick if you're handling your social media yourself. The #1 thing I get asked, especially during those times when I'm generating a tremendous amount of content for multiple clients, is how do I come up with the posts? How can I possibly generate that much content? And how is it actually consistently good?

The answer is those content categories. I, too, feel overwhelmed sometimes when I sit down at the computer to come up with content. But when I refer back to my notes, it becomes markedly easier to go, Oh I haven't posted a testimonial from one of our clients in awhile, let me go do that right now. The pre-planning takes the stress and the guesswork out of the overwhelm. 

If you're going to utilize themed days in your social media marketing strategy, this becomes even easier. For example, #ThrowbackThursday just requires you to dust off something in your archives and repost it with a fresh take.

3) Community

It's funny: when I'm talking to entrepreneurs, most people name Consistency and/or Content as their biggest challenge. But I think Community is actually the hardest C to master on this list. This C is all about engaging with your followers and putting a human face on your brand. And it's freakin hard. It's hard to get people to care, hard to get them engaged, harder still to get them to buy.

Ideally, you should be spending the majority of your time interacting with your Community. But this is the one that's hardest to do because not only does it require time, it often feels like you're shouting into the void. You spend twenty, thirty, forty minutes a day talking to people and for what? To hear crickets? It can be frustrating and disheartening.

But I also know this to be true: spending time on your Community yields the richest rewards. There is no shortcut to this C, only consistent effort, time, and a commitment to continuing to show up. 

Let me know in the comments below - which C do you have the most trouble with?