Your Complete Social Media Checklist
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I was browsing through suggested marketing articles on Post Planner and came across this great social media check list. Sometimes you just need a checklist as a reminder of things you should be doing on Social Media daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly. While this is a little more advanced for those that are just starting with Social Media, you can glean many nuggets from this information! Check out the deets below and feel free to print the checklist for your use!
That’s why Sprout Social created this social media checklist that will help make sure you’re keeping up with all of your tasks on a daily, monthly and quarterly basis. Check out the list below and continue reading to figure out what each task means.
Make sure you check our webinar on How to Market on Social Like a Global Brand. We covered social media checklists and other strategies to help you create an effective social media marketing strategy.
Michael Patterson is a digital marketing specialist at Sprout Social, a social media management platform for business.
Daily Social Media Checklist
Respond to Inbound Social Messages
At Sprout Social, we think of social media as a channel where customers and brands can come together to communicate openly in order to build lasting relationships. That’s why we believe that responding to inbound social messages from your customers should be the first thing on your checklist.
Monitor & Respond to Brand Mentions
Not every person who mentions your brand or product on social media will tag you in the post. That means it’s important to monitor social media feeds for messages mentioning your brand that don’t actually tag you, so you can still engage with conversations involving your business. Try using a social media monitoring tool to track keywords signaling a conversation you should join.
Create conversations with brand advocates:
Your brand advocates are the social media users who love your company and are happy to recommend your brand to their communities. These users may help by sharing your content or even by directly telling a friend to purchase your products. Keep a running list of these users so you can maintain the relationships for long-term benefits.
Load your social media content calendar:
A robust social media calendar is key to a successful social media strategy. Timely social posts can help grow your following, facilitate community engagement and drive clicks to your website. The amount of times you should post to social varies based on your industry and audience, but general guidelines say:
- Post six to nine times on Twitter
- Post one to two times on Facebook
- Post one to two times on Google+
- Post one to three times on Instagram
- Post one to two times on LinkedIn
Stay up-to-date on the social media industry:
Social media is an incredibly dynamic marketing channel, and if you’re going to take full advantage of all the networks have to offer you’ll need to keep up with the constant updates. Put aside some time every day to do a bit of research on newest tools and best practices.
Create unique images to share on social:
Sharing unique images on social media isn’t just great for increasing message engagement, it’s also an amazing way to showcase who you are and inspire your audience.
Check out your competition’s presence:
While you should never copy your competitor’s social media strategy it’s in your best interest to keep up with what they’re doing on their networks. Look to direct competitors as well as other companies in the industry to identify gaps in the marketplace and find ways to fill those gaps either with content or products.
Build new content:
In order to keep that social content calendar full you’ll need a good deal of unique content to share with your audience. Try to spend some time creating robust content that you know your audience will like, such as:
- Blog posts
- Guides
- Quizzes
- eBooks
- Webinars
- Polls
Think about your brand:
Spend time thinking through your product and your overall social voice to ensure the messages you’re creating fit your brand. Chat with individuals across different departments of your organization to understand how to position your company powerfully on social.
Manage your personal profiles:
Put a little bit of time aside to make sure your personal social profiles look professional. Your brand’s followers may know that you personally manage those pages, and having a solid presence can help lend credibility to the brand pages.
Weekly Social Media Checklist
Engage With Thought Leaders
Almost every industry out there has thought leaders. These are the folks leading their specific market with the latest tips, tricks strategies and advice. It’s great to get yourself in front of the thought leaders in your industry so they may mention you to their large following.
Engage With Marketing Partners
Some companies work closely with other brands on content like events, webinars, eBooks and podcasts. If you have partners like this, it’s always good to interact with them on social in order to grow that relationship.
Discuss tactics with your team:
If there is more than one person managing your social media accounts it’s important to set aside some time to chat. Make sure to discuss new industry trends and strategies as well as how you can make those strategies work for your brand.
Update your calendar with events:
Fill your social media content calendar with events taking place outside of the realm of social media. If your company is hosting an event or attending an event that could be supplemented with some social media content you should start to plan for that ahead of time.
Pull your social media data:
Analyzing your social media data helps you make informed decisions when it comes to social strategy. You can use the data to figure out which networks to leverage, what post copy works best, how quickly you’re responding to inbound messages and much more. Leverage a social media analytics tool to help make these informed decisions.
Encourage sharing with employee advocacy:
An employee advocacy program makes it simple for brands to upload content–like blog posts, webinar invites or even open job positions–into one place so that the employees who work there can easily share it across their social networks. This will help scale the amount of impressions you receive on each piece of content. Try an employee advocacy tool to encourage sharing and run reports on success.
Attend a Twitter chat:
Twitter Chats are micro-communities where individuals come together to share thoughts and strategies with peers in their industry. It’s based on a question and answer format, and it’s a great way to grow your social media following amongst a relevant community.
Monthly Social Media Checklist
Audit Your Strategy
This is similar to checking out your weekly social media analytics, except it requires you to dive much deeper into your metrics to see what is working and what you need to stop focusing on. We’ve put together a five-step process for conducting your own social media audit that can help you through the process.
Attend Local Events
Part of being a social media manager is actually being social (go figure). It can be fun and productive to attend some local meet-ups to engage with other social managers in your area. The events don’t have to just be about social media either: try looking for some overall marketing or business events as well.
Detox From Social Media
Social media never sleeps: but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to. It’s possible to burn yourself out if you try to keep up with every single message sent to your pages. Train someone on your team to hold down the fort for a day or two each month so you can actually get some much deserved rest and relaxation.
Collaborate With Other Departments
Most departments have a specific place on a business’s social media, and if you can get these groups on board, they can help lighten some of the social load. If you see a question come in on social, simply task it to the proper department and let them respond accordingly.
- Finance can answer questions about billing.
- HR can answer questions about job openings.
- R&D can answer questions about new products.
Quarterly Social Media Checklist
Adjust Quarterly Goals
Set goals each quarter so you know if you’re performing up to your own expectations. If you’re exceeding the goals you set for yourself, create new objectives that continue to challenge you to perform well. If you didn’t hit your goals, revisit where you fell short and analyze what went wrong.
Assess Key Performance Indicators
After you’ve looked at your goals, think about whether or not you’re tracking the proper metrics. There’s not much sense in continuing to hit and exceed your objectives if it turns out that those key performance indicators don’t make much of a difference on your company’s bottom line.
Gauge Team Capacity & Needs
Did you have trouble keeping up this quarter? Even if you managed to stay on top of things, you might have missed some things you wanted test out, but didn’t have the time. If that’s the case, it could be time to think about bringing someone else onto your team to help.
Check out How Sprout Social Can Help
If you hadn’t noticed, we here at Sprout Social like to provide you with the best tips and advice on all things social. In fact, we have our own social media management and engagement platform that we believe is an amazing fit for social media managers learning from this post.
Our full suite of tools makes it easy to engage, analyze, publish, report, and do so much more with your social media. This makes it easy to quickly check off to-dos from your list. Give it a try completely free for 30-days and see if it’s a good fit for you!
What would you add to your own social checklist? Tell us in the comments so that the next time we update this, it will include everything an active social media manager could ever want.
