How a Social Media Content Strategy Can Help your Horse Business /
It goes without saying that social media is a powerful tool when it comes to any equine business. The content you share on social media has the power to transform your brand from a nervous, unbroken 3-year-old into a competitive 4* event horse.
However, it can be tricky to communicate what makes your brand unique and stand out from your competitors, which is why we’ve put together a guide for creating the perfect social media strategy.
SET OUT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GOALS & OBJECTIVES
It might sound tedious but creating meaningful goals for your business will really help you when it comes to creating content and deciding what to share. For example, one of your goals might be to increase engagement, which you can measure from metrics such as likes, comments and shares. These goals might stem from your overall marketing objectives, but we recommend you make them as specific as possible as then they are more likely to be met.
PLAN & GATHER RESOURCES TO CREATE HIGH VALUE CONTENT
We find that the easiest way to start planning content is to look back at your previous social media content. Which posts performed well? Which received high numbers of likes and comments? Do they look and feel consistent with the tone of your brand? What messages are they conveying to your customers? And finally, are they helping to meet your social media goals?
While it is important to evaluate your social media pages from your customers’ perspective and what they can see, you can also utilise the quantitative insights and analytics that the platform provides. For example, Instagram allows you to see how many people have saved your post, or how many people have visited your page as a result of viewing your story. Being aware of these insights and having more of an idea of the content your followers enjoy can only help you when it comes to creating more content. It is important to remember that posting irrelevant content is one of the greatest reasons consumers unfollow a brand on social media (poor customer service being the top reason!).
CREATE A SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT CALENDAR
Once you’ve set your goals and identified what content you are going to share, it’s time to organise when and where you’ll be sharing your posts. For our own and some of our clients’ social media marketing projects, we like to use Trello boards to organise and track content. Using the Calendar Power-up gives you a visual overview of your posts. It also has an app you can use to keep track day-to-day.
Using a content calendar will help create a more rounded plan, and make it easier to collaborate posts across all the different platforms you use. Remember, creating your content strategy is an ongoing cycle, it doesn’t need to be one big overwhelming task!
If you’re unsure of how often to post on the different platforms, read our blog ‘How Often Should I Be Posting On Social Media’.
And if we can give you one last bit of advice, it is to measure the results of your social media efforts. Use your social media goals and results together to help highlight whether any changes to your strategy need to be made, therefore staying one step ahead of your competitors!
Head over to our Resources page to get your FREE social media strategy worksheet!
BONUS: We have included a weekly planner, monthly overview and a page with 30 post suggestions for your business.
