Does Your Social Media Stack Up?

What is social media stacking?

A social media marketing strategy will cater to a specific business goal through tactical methods across all social media platforms. Before devising a strategy, the brand must be clear of its requirements and eventually set goals that are realistic and attainable. Social media stacking can be described as the legacy of content or work that a social media user has or will post on various social media networks. Even if one is using different themes and content types for different networks, the body of work can come in handy for others to influence or educate themselves on certain topics. Social media stacking helps to position a brand on and off social media.

Every channel has its own set of guidelines and tools that will help to boost or promote a user’s/influencer’s content on that channel. The portfolio of work that establishes a user as a credible educator/influencer/reliable source of information can be termed as a ‘social stack’.

How to get started with stacking?

Creating an impressive stack of social media content/posts is no rocket science. However, one has to be sure of what they want to post or write about. It could be something you are passionate about or know extensively about. Here’s a step-by-step guide on the same:

Step 1: Read a lot of content (on the topic of interest) across different social media platforms. Make a note of posts that have had more impressions, comments, and likes. Note down conclusions that clarify the failure of other posts on similar topics.

Step 2: Look for and save multi-media content types like images, GIFs, infographics, illustrations, and every other form of visual or audio-visual content that can make your post more engaging.

Step 3: Research related keywords and hashtags on different search engines. One can also make use of tools like SEMRUSH, Ahrefs, Moz, and more.

Step 4: Start creating content and start posting it on different networks.

Step 5: Observe and measure (using analytical tools) to see how your content is being received on different platforms. A cookie-cutter or one-for-all approach might not work for the different social media platforms as all of them have different algorithms and criteria to rank.

Step 6: Repurpose your content to suit the style and guidelines of different networks.

Once a content creator starts feeling familiar with the audience and prospects, targeted brand messaging and customer interactions start to fall in place gradually.

How can a creator establish whether their social media strategies are working in their favor?

A social media content creator (solo/agency/company representative) can determine whether their strategies are working by observing how the brand’s business pages are faring during and after a post. It is important to keep a tab on the number of mentions the brand engaged with. It could be on the comment section of a LinkedIn post, the number of reposts on Instagram, or the number of shares and reactions on Facebook – on each respective platform, one can generally get a good measure of growth.

How effective is your brand in capitalizing on the opportunities?

Just posting content won’t help a creator/brand to attract and amass followers who are genuinely interested in their content/product/service. Posting content must be followed up with several other activities:

• Customer service: Customer service is an integral part of brand name creation. How well and swiftly a creator (solo/agency/company) interacts with a viewer or potential customer sets the tone for the brand’s future impressions. Positive, relevant, and useful answers always ensure customer retention and an influx of new clients.
• Crisis aversion: Social media crisis management is an in-demand underrated skill. Agencies that hire other agencies for their social media marketing needs, look for professionals who are adept at crisis management tactics such as handling a bad review or disgruntled comments by an existing engager or customer. When a creator successfully handles a crisis on social media, the brand gains a favorable reputation and invites new followers through word-of-mouth marketing.
• Customer delight: The whole point of social media stacking is to delight customers with content that educates, entertains, and somehow adds value to the customer’s life directly or indirectly. While creating content, it is imperative to remember that the sole objective of creating or repurposing content is to engage and delight customers that spend time on social media reading or browsing through your content.
• Diversification: Talking about or promoting products and services that are closely related to the ones the creator is posting about instills a certain sense of mystery and indulgence amongst existing viewers. The technique also adds a splash of newness and variety to your content base.

Competitive benchmarking

Competitive benchmarking is the process of comparing your brand’s position against several competitors that work for the same line of business. It is done through a set of metrics and helps in shortlisting the strategies that have proved to be helpful and effective in the long run.

Social strategies that ensure a brand’s success or guarantee positive mentions over time are something a social creator should know in and out. These strategies should be extensively used for social stacking and can be used to garner more visibility and credibility for the content creator or face of the brand.