It’s a common myth that planning and social media don’t go together. Many businesses think that social is an informal channel and as such, shouldn’t be planned. But they’re dead wrong. Here's why a social media plan gets results.

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter need consistent tone and tempo

Look across all your favourite company pages on social media and take note of these 2 critical success factors:

1. Tone How do they sound? How do they communicate their brand personality?
2. Tempo How frequently do you hear from them? Is it fairly evenly spaced out? Do they alternate between types of posts? For example, humorous memes, helpful hints and offers?

The best business social accounts nail both tone and tempo. Happily, for Digital Stack users, the tone is already sorted. Digital Stack provides perfect tone. It’s built into the templates. It’s the phrasing. The colours and fonts. The brand imagery. The spatial layout. It all adds up to a brand’s tone.

Get tempo right with a social media plan

By having a consistent tempo of varied post types you keep followers engaged, and more inclined to 'like' and 'share' (which multiplies reach). They’ll also be more receptive to offers when they’re posted. We’ve seen significant improvements in performance from organic social activity by adopting a planned approach. One established customer in the fitness industry improved engagement by 110% in less than 6 months. Though the type of content they posted stayed largely the same, their social media presence improved in terms of frequency, consistency  and post variety. So how best to go about populating your social media planner? If you’re staring at a blank planner tasked with ‘filling it up’, it can feel a bit directionless. If that’s you, here are some ground rules to help:

Best practice for your monthly social media plan

1. Keep a consistent tempo

Don’t post 3 times in a day then go dark for a fortnight. Plan a post every second day, or 5 times a week. Or maybe 3 facebook posts a week, 3 Instagram posts a week. Whatever you settle on, keep it pretty consistent.

2. Aim for 8-20 posts per month on both Facebook and Instagram

If you’re thinking that sounds like quite a wide range, you’re right. There’s examples of successful social pages at each end of the spectrum. Go for quality over quantity. Check out the templates in Build and Schedule section of Digital Stack for inspiration. If you use Twitter, it’s hard to post too much; the shelf life of a tweet is less than an hour.  But go for quality over quantity, and don’t just tweet for the sake of it.

3. Alternate between the types of posts

You have to mix it up. For example, post an uplifting customer testimonial, then a humorous meme, then industry tips, followed by an offer. Planning out your month’s activity in advance lets users ensure there’s a variety of post types. Even when multiple people are managing your account. When thinking through the type of posts you want to put out there, think through your audience and the objective. While we’re on the topic, the best way to lose followers is to club them over the head with non-stop offers. Its desperate and tacky.

4. Collect great photos and videos for your planner as you go

Don’t decide to make a post, then go take a photo because you need one for that post. Take photos and videos as opportunities arise, then add them to your social media plan.

This way you’ll have a collection of all the best moments captured and ready to go, rather than a ‘just OK’ picture when it comes time to post. Facebook and especially Instagram are very visual mediums where exceptional imagery will get rewarded.

5. Give your whole team access to your planner

Your whole team needs to be singing from the same song sheet. Anyone with access to the social accounts needs to know what's going on, and when. If everyone is doing their own thing it's likely you won't get a good mix of content. And the tempo will almost certainly be erratic.

Be honest, how was your tone and tempo last month?

Too often we fail to stop, take a breathe, and review what we’ve done. So this time make an effort to look in the rearview mirror at your past month’s social media activity. How consistent is it? What’s the frequency of posts like? How varied are the type of posts? Now create a social media plan for the next month.  Use the planning guidelines in this article to fill out your Digital Stack monthly planner. It’s 15 minutes' work that could double your social media engagement.