Social networks have become indispensable communication channels for businesses, covering a wide range of purposes.
Sustaining social operations on multiple platforms appears to be a challenging task, especially with the involvement of disjointed processes and chaotic decision-making.
In reality, the key to social operations sustainability lies in establishing a framework within which the company’s teams consistently perform repetitive tasks while adapting to evolving audiences’ needs.
Organizations can achieve sustainable social operations by developing a set of processes encompassing all stages of social media management, from preparation to performance.
Develop a repeatable content process
A fundamental aspect of any social operations sustainability strategy involves designing a repeatable content process.
Beyond brainstorming and developing content ideas, companies must invest effort and resources into defining a comprehensive set of rules for team members to plan, approve, and publish social media assets. Teams should invest effort and resources into designing processes for repetitive tasks to accelerate operations and reduce human error, as outlined in detail in this article.
A uniform approach also supports brands’ ability to keep their voices and visual identity consistent across multiple channels and platforms.
Marketers can tailor content according to the unique attributes of each social network while following unified guidelines.
This strategy yields higher-quality output with lower production costs, enabling companies to dedicate more time and resources to the content creation process itself.
Developed and documented processes contribute to the establishment of a centralized content repository with proven, reusable assets that yield better results with every iteration. The described content process design approach can also be applied to one’s publication planning and scheduling process.
Formalize the publishing process
Asking themselves how to get more out of their busy social media managers, many companies overlook the critical importance of defining the rules for publishing content. Teams must define the what, who, when, and how questions before launching any social media campaign.
Publishing calendars assist organizations in organizing campaign-specific content, reserving slots for important announcements, and ensuring a uniform publication schedule.
Managers can leverage publishing calendars and operational automation to organize and execute the publication process in a highly efficient manner with reduced manual effort.
Scheduling tools can help operations teams consolidate their efforts and reduce the administrative burden of publishing across multiple platforms. Although social media management tools can help companies dramatically enhance process efficiency, the described approaches cannot replace the critical evaluation and editing functions carried out by actual people. Teams must constantly balance between automated posting and the possibility to adapt based on evolving conditions and real-time audience insights.
As discussed in this article, human input and strategic flexibility are essential at all stages of the social media management process.
Embedding audience engagement into operations
The fundamental purpose of regular content publication is to support audience engagement.
Sustaining audience engagement is the hallmark of any social operations process maturity.
The ability to listen to what customers are saying about the brand is critical to any company engaging every day in social networks, responding to questions and complaints, and collecting actionable feedback. Engagement also supports the identification of frequent customer-initiated interactions, such as FAQs. Teams can develop specific response strategies, including an escalation process, for each of the identified engagement categories.
Designing a proactive reputation process
While audiences’ adoration may help drive business growth, companies must remain acutely aware of the fact that even the smallest complaint can trigger a wave of criticism, ultimately hurting sales figures.
An essential element of social operations sustainability strategy should therefore involve preparing teams for such situations. In practice, it means putting processes in place that would enable companies to react with reasonable speed and transparency to any controversial visitor-initiated interaction. Teams can leverage monitoring tools to keep track of what is being said about them and use social listening to identify and prepare responses to any emerging issues. In addition, organizations must define detailed escalation rules, setting forth a sequence of events and responsible action items for customer service, legal, communications, and executive departments in response to any negative or concerning visitor-initiated interaction.
Using data and analytics
Without analytics, any social operations process design strategy is bound to become dysfunctional.
A wide variety of metrics can be used to assess the benefits and shortcomings of one’s social operations processes, with the choice of performance indicators dependent on the company’s goals and values.
For instance, while a high reach number is typically positively correlated with brand awareness, one should not disregard other important metrics, such as the number of conversions, engagement, and even revenue. Teams should strive to consistently expand their repertoire of relevant and measurable KPIs and conduct regular KPI reviews to identify what processes and channels appear to yield the most consistent results.
Designing a team structure
Social media operations typically become more complicated as the business develops, growing in both scope and scale.
Such complexity calls for a uniform approach in which individual contribution rules are clearly defined: who is responsible for creating content and publishing it, who evaluates risks, who engages with the audience, and who analyzes the collected data. In addition, organizations can utilize standardized guidelines, thereby empowering specific groups of people without eliminating their critical input. Centralized documentation becomes equally indispensable, as it empowers social media specialists to quickly familiarize themselves with the rules and regulations of the book.
By building process depth across all areas of social operations, teams can keep processes consistent and predictable while encouraging a culture of continuous innovation and improvement.
Creating a sustainable process structure
While audiences evolve, businesses need to maintain an acceptable level of quality and consistency in social operations while also trying to optimize them to get more value out of every second spent on social networks.
Essentially, organizations must operate according to sustainable social operations best practices, designing repeatable processes tailored to their specific needs while also remaining flexible to changing conditions and new demands.
Companies must recognize the fact that the processes supporting social media operations should supplement and empower people rather than bind and restrict them, stifling innovation. Following the rules and consistently improving them based on collected data is the surest way to get more out of one’s social media efforts while minimizing disruptions to regular operations. In the end, the ability to build such processes will enable organizations to develop an enhanced understanding of their audiences, keep their social media presence consistently high, and leverage this powerful marketing channel for years to come.
Conclusion
Organizations must pursue excellence in their operations while always having a plan B in case of necessity. Social operations sustainability strategies take various forms and rely on a set of rules and processes designed to guide individuals toward superior performance. Repeatable, documented processes support the creation of quality content, effective audience engagement, and consistent reputation management while also minimizing disruptions and risks. By learning how to use social networks to their advantage, teams can dramatically increase their productivity, creating high-quality content that resonates with target audiences and converts into sales.
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