When you are planning your social media calendar, it can be rather time-consuming as you tailor each post to the platform audience. Couple that with the skill set required to elicit desired engagement, and it can quickly become overwhelming. Fortunately, WriterAccess has a team of writers who possess those specific skills that can make your social posts perform better for you. However, deciding the best way to proceed may be a bit daunting. Here are a few strategies that will help.
Have a sense of your social media goals
What do you want your social media to do? Do you want the posts to compel people to click through to your blog or website? Are you looking for engagement? Do you want to reach new customers? These are all things you need to consider before you place your order. If you are placing a Solo order and have already chosen a writer, you should have a conversation with them so you can both be on the same page. If you are using a Love List to find a writer, then that conversation will need to wait until a writer picks up the order. Either way, try to have some goals in place that you can clearly communicate with your writer.
Know your platform audience
Your writer will already know what audiences are prevalent on each platform, but you can better manage your expectations if you know this as well. While you don’t have to be a social media specialist, it does help to understand some of the basic ins and outs of social media marketing. That way, when you order social posts, you have some idea what to expect.
If at any time you are unsure, don’t hesitate to reach out to your writer with questions. This is your business, and the more clarity you can provide, the better. Yes, trusting your writer is vital to a good relationship, but if you have things you want to be included, it is far better to discuss them at the onset of the project than to try to hammer it out in revision requests.
Organize your social media calendar
If you don’t have a social media calendar, it would be in your best interest to get one. A simple Excel file or Google Sheet will work just fine. This will give you a big-picture view of your social media over several days or weeks.
Posts with pictures perform better than text only, so decide whether you want your writer to source images or if you will do it yourself. If you want your writer to do it, this is usually an additional cost so make sure you discuss it with your writer before the project begins. You may want to post a Casting Call and get quotes from writers prior to starting the project. You also need to consider hashtags. Your writer can help you or you can do a little research and come up with your own. Often, they incorporate keywords specific to your business as well as popular hashtags used on the platform.
Make notes on your calendar that indicate what you want each post to do. For instance, you may want Monday’s post to be inspirational, Tuesday and Thursday to contain industry news, Wednesday and Saturday to lead back to your blog or website, and Friday to be an engagement post. The more information you can communicate with your writer, the better, but if you aren’t sure what you want, they can definitely help guide you as well.
Order social posts by order frequency
There are several ways you can order your posts. At WriterAccess, we are set up to handle Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn posts. You can use our social post order format, which separates each post to help you stay organized. If you want Instagram posts, you will need to use the regular order form.
- One-time post – A single post for one platform or several.
- Weekly posts – A week of posts for one platform or several. A week is whatever you want it to be: three posts, five posts. You decide.
- Monthly posts – A month of posts for one platform or several. A month is what you decide. It could mean six days a week from the first day of the month to the last, or any number of weekly posts for up to a 30-day period.
Working with your writer
Communication is key when working with your writer. They are depending on you to drive the project by communicating your expectations, what you would like to see, what you need your social posts to do, and what your audience wants. If you aren’t sure what you want or don’t know much about social media, that OK. Just make sure you communicate that to your writer and work together to create social media campaigns that work for your business. If you find you need more from your writer than the WriterAccess platform allows, you can always buy out your writer’s contract, giving you both more room to work on your business.
Knowing you need a writer is the first step. But where do you go from there? How do you find a writer, vet them, and ensure that they will deliver on time? Luckily for you, you don’t have to worry about any of that when you choose WriterAccess. All our writers are rigorously vetted, so you can rest assured whoever you pick will be pretty awesome. What could be easier?
Stephanie M is a writer living in East Central, Alabama, but she didn’t always lead such a peaceful, carefree life. A few years ago she made a daring escape from the “cube farm” at a Federal Agency in Washington, D.C. (after eight very long years) where she worked. as an analyst focusing on disaster response, technical writing, program management, and FOIA.
