Introduction: Reassessing Your Strategy
The Managed IT Services industry is highly competitive, and standing out is no easy task. We know that your focus is on providing the best IT solutions and support, so naturally your marketing can fall behind. But today’s customers are perennially online, and the best way to stand out is to step in and start connecting: social media.
Knowing when to restrategise is crucial. Social media moves fast, and a strategy that worked well six months ago may be well outdated for your current audience. A well-executed social media strategy will help you reach your ideal audience effectively, providing them with valuable insights and solutions to their problems — right when they need it.
This article is the conclusion of our comprehensive series on why MSPs need to be using social media. Here, we will discuss how to pinpoint the best times to post, the KPIs to track, and the importance of regularly reassessing your strategy.
Chapter 7: Content Calendar Organisation
A successful social media strategy is not just about what content you create, but also when and how you share it. The key to managing this efficiently lies in a well-structured content calendar. Without a plan, your social media efforts can quickly become erratic or inconsistent. Creating a content calendar involves several steps, each crucial to the overall strategy:
Content audit: Assess what types of content have performed well in the past. This will guide what to include going forward.
Define objectives: Whether it’s brand awareness, lead generation, or customer engagement, knowing your objectives will shape your content strategy.
Content types and platforms: Decide which types of content will go on which platform. For instance, in-depth articles might be best for LinkedIn, while quick updates could go on Twitter.
Scheduling: Determine the frequency and timing of your posts. This could be influenced by analytics data showing when your audience is most active.
Keep in mind that a content calendar is not a set-and-forget tool. It will require ongoing monitoring and regular adjusting, based on engagement rates, comments and messages, and click-through rates. These will also help inform your content strategy – whether it’s the type of content, posting frequency, or even topics.
A well-organised content calendar ensures consistency, aids in quality control, and helps align your online activities with broader business objectives. The danger lies in forgetting about your calendar – without it, your posting schedule will become unreliable, and posts will miss their timely windows of opportunity.
Chapter 8: Measuring Success with Metrics
Having a robust social media strategy and a well-planned content calendar are critical, but how do you know if your efforts are paying off? The answer lies in key performance indicators (KPIs). Measuring the impact of your social media will provide insights into your target audience, guide future strategies and resource allocation, and reveal which of your services or solutions are in demand – or are becoming superfluous.
Engagement rate: This measures how actively your audience interacts with your content. It includes likes, comments, and shares. A high engagement rate generally indicates that your content resonates with your audience.
Reach and impressions: Reach measures how many unique users have seen your content, while impressions count the total number of views, including multiple views by the same user. These metrics give you an idea of the visibility of your posts.
Click-through rate (CTR): CTR shows the percentage of viewers who clicked on the links in your posts. This is crucial for MSPs focusing on lead generation or driving traffic to their website.
Follower growth: A steadily increasing follower count is generally a good sign, but it’s even more important to attract followers who are relevant to your industry and services.
Conversion rate: For MSPs, conversions could mean different things — filling out a contact form, downloading a whitepaper, or signing up for a webinar. Tracking how many of these actions result from social media engagement is vital.
By tracking these metrics, you can make informed adjustments to your social media strategy; for example, analytics can reveal when your audience is most active, or if one platform is yielding better results than the others.
Conclusion: Using Social Media to Drive Engagement and Growth
At the core of this guide is the principle that social media is not a one-size-fits-all solution, it’s a multifaceted tool that can be tailored to meet the specific needs and challenges of MSPs. Through LinkedIn, you have the opportunity to engage directly with decision-makers in your field, positioning your brand as a thought leader and a problem solver, while Facebook and Twitter offer valuable channels for customer engagement, quick updates, and personalisation.
The key to a successful social media strategy lies in understanding your audience and delivering consistent, high-quality content that addresses their pain points and needs. Couple this with a well-planned content calendar and data-driven decision-making, and you’re well on your way to leveraging social media as a powerful tool for business growth.
LeftLeads will help you walk this path and turn knowledge into actionable results. Our team of social media strategists will work with you to develop a customised plan that aligns with your business objectives, engages your target audience, and drives measurable results.
Don’t leave your social media success to chance. Contact us today for a free consultation, and find out how we can help transform your social media presence into a growth engine for your business.
