Planning Social Media Content? Ask Yourself These 9 Essential Questions

As a social media marketer, you know that creating scroll-stopping content doesn‘t just happen by chance. Behind every successful social media presence is a thoughtful, data-driven content strategy.

But with so many moving parts to consider – from ever-changing platform trends to understanding your unique audience – it can be overwhelming to know where to start. That‘s why we‘ve broken down the nine most important questions to ask yourself when planning and scheduling your social media content.

By taking the time to work through these questions, you‘ll be able to build a strong foundation for your social strategy and create content that truly connects with your target audience. Let‘s dive in!

1. What Are Your Social Media Marketing Goals?

Before you start crafting clever captions or designing eye-catching graphics, take a step back to clarify your overarching social media marketing goals. What specific results are you trying to achieve through social media?

Some common social media goals include:

• Increasing brand awareness and reach
• Driving website traffic
• Generating leads and sales
• Growing an engaged community
• Providing exceptional customer service

According to the Sprout Social Index™, Edition XVII: Accelerate, the top goals for social are increasing brand awareness (58%) and increasing community engagement (41%).

Whatever your specific goals may be, make sure they are clear, measurable and aligned with your broader business objectives. Use the SMART goals framework to define targets that are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

For example, rather than a vague goal like "grow Instagram following", set a SMART goal like "Increase Instagram followers from 10,000 to 15,000 by the end of Q2".

Well-defined goals will guide your content planning and help prove the value of your social media efforts over time. They give you a destination to work towards and make it easier to measure success.

2. Who Is Your Target Audience on Each Social Platform?

To create content that truly resonates, you need a clear understanding of who you‘re trying to reach on each social network.

Start by gathering data on the demographics and psychographics of your existing social media audience using native platform insights or third-party analytics tools. Look for trends in characteristics like:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Job title or industry
• Interests and hobbies
• Pain points and challenges

Here‘s an example of what audience demographic data looks like in Sprout Social:

Use this data to build out detailed buyer personas that paint a picture of your ideal social media audience. Give each persona a name, a photo, and detailed descriptions of their key attributes.

Keep in mind that your audience may vary from platform to platform. For instance, while Instagram tends to skew towards Millennials and Gen Z, Facebook has higher usage among older generations. And TikTok has an especially young user base – 60% of U.S. TikTok users are between 16-24.

Take the time to understand the nuances of each social network and tailor your buyer personas accordingly. The better you understand your audience on each platform, the more effectively you‘ll be able to create content that stops the scroll.

3. What Types of Content Does Your Audience Engage With Most?

Now that you know who you‘re creating content for, it‘s time to dive into what types of content your unique audience craves.

Of course, every audience is different, so it‘s important to look at your own social media analytics to understand what works for your brand. Most social media management platforms have built-in analytics that make it easy to see your top-performing posts.

For example, here‘s a look at post performance analytics in Hootsuite:

Review this data regularly to identify trends in your top posts. Do you see any patterns in terms of content type, format, or topic?

Some high-performing content types to consider testing include:

• Short-form video content (15-60 seconds)
• Interactive content like polls or quizzes
• User-generated content (UGC)
• Trending, newsworthy or timely content
• Memes and humorous content
• Contests and giveaways
• Inspiring or motivational content
• Educational or how-to style content

For instance, video content continues to dominate social media, with the amount of online videos watched per week growing 52% in the last two years. Reels are now making up more than 20% of the time people spend on Instagram.

Staying on top of social media content trends can help inspire new ideas, but always bring things back to your specific audience‘s preferences. Your analytics will be your best friend when planning your content mix.

4. What Is Your Brand Voice on Social Media?

Your brand voice is the personality you portray on social media. It encompasses the language and tone you use and how you want to make your audience feel.

Are you funny and irreverent like Wendy‘s or Innocent Drinks? Bold and inspiring like Nike? Helpful and approachable like Mailchimp?

Your distinct brand personality should shine through in all the content you share on social media. This helps you build a consistent, recognizable brand that your audience can connect with.

To define your brand voice, start by brainstorming 3-5 adjectives that describe your brand personality. Then, expand on those adjectives with clear dos and don‘ts for your tone and language.

For instance, if "playful" is one of your brand adjectives, a "do" might be "use puns and wordplay to add humor", while a "don‘t" could be "use sarcasm or snark that could be misinterpreted".

Document your brand voice guidelines in detail and share them with all team members and external partners who may be involved in your social media content creation. Consistency is key to building a strong brand voice.

5. What Is Your Optimal Posting Frequency on Each Network?

One of the most common questions in social media marketing is, "How often should I post?". The answer is not one-size-fits-all.

In general, here are the posting frequency recommendations for the major social networks:

• Facebook: 1-2 posts per day
• Instagram: 3-7 posts per week
• Twitter: 1-5 Tweets per day
• LinkedIn: 1-5 posts per week
• TikTok: 1-3 times per day

However, it‘s important to note that quality beats quantity every time. It‘s better to post one super engaging piece of content per week than to bombard your followers with lackluster posts every day.

Your optimal posting frequency will also depend on your audience size, engagement rates, content production capacity, and overall goals. For example, an ecommerce brand focused on driving product sales may benefit from higher posting frequencies, while a B2B brand focused on thought leadership may see better results from a few strategically timed posts per week.

Use your analytics to test different posting schedules and see how they impact your reach and engagement rates over time. Most social media scheduling tools will also provide recommendations for your best posting times and frequencies based on your historical performance data.

6. When Are the Best Times to Post for Your Audience?

In addition to figuring out your optimal posting frequency, you‘ll also want to nail down your best posting times for maximum reach and engagement.

While there are plenty of generic studies out there on the best times to post, the truth is it varies widely by industry, time zone, and the unique behavior patterns of your specific audience.

Instead of relying on broad best practices, dig into your own analytics to pinpoint when your audience is most active and engaged. Look for trends in your top performing posts. Do you tend to see spikes in engagement at certain times of day or days of the week?

Most social media analytics tools will also show you detailed breakdowns of when your audience is online. For example, here‘s a look at Instagram audience activity in Sprout Social:

Use these insights to build out a posting schedule that aligns with when your audience is most likely to be scrolling their feeds. Keep in mind that these patterns may shift over time, so it‘s important to check your timing analytics regularly and adjust your scheduling accordingly.

7. What‘s Your Mix of Created vs Curated vs User-Generated Content?

When planning your social media content calendar, think about incorporating a mix of created, curated and user-generated content.

Created content refers to the original posts, graphics, and videos your brand makes from scratch. This is your opportunity to showcase your brand voice, perspective and unique value proposition. Strive to create content that educates, inspires, entertains or helps your audience solve a problem.

Curated content is relevant, high-quality content from other sources that you share with your audience. This could include blog posts, infographics, videos, or social media posts from industry thought leaders, news outlets, or complementary brands. Always provide your own unique commentary when sharing curated content to add value.

User-generated content (UGC) is any content related to your brand that is created by someone else, usually a customer or fan. This could be a glowing review, an unboxing video, or a customer photo featuring your product in action. UGC is incredibly powerful for building trust and driving purchasing decisions. Make a habit of regularly monitoring your mentions and branded hashtags to discover great UGC to amplify.

So what‘s the ideal mix of created, curated and UGC? Here‘s a simple rule of thumb:

• 40% created content
• 40% curated content
• 20% promotional content (including UGC)

Of course, you may need to adjust these ratios based on your unique goals and content strategy. But in general, aim for that balance to provide a good mix of value for your audience while also leaving room for your brand to shine.

8. What Tools Will You Use to Plan, Schedule & Measure Content?

To keep your social media content organized and flowing consistently, you‘ll need the right tools for the job. Investing in a robust social media management platform can help you streamline your workflows, stay on top of key conversations, and make data-driven decisions.

Look for an all-in-one social media suite that includes features like:

• Cross-platform scheduling and publishing
• Content curation and asset management
• Engagement monitoring and messaging
• In-depth analytics and reporting
• Team collaboration and approval workflows

Some of the top social media management tools for content planning and scheduling include:

• Sprout Social
• Hootsuite
• Agorapulse
• Buffer
• CoSchedule
• Sprinklr

Using these tools, you can build out your content calendar weeks or even months in advance to maintain a consistent posting cadence. Many also offer content curation features like post templates and hashtag suggestions to streamline the content creation process.

For example, Sprout Social‘s publishing tool makes it easy to compose, schedule and preview posts for multiple social networks in one intuitive calendar view:

Look for a social media management platform that integrates with your existing marketing tech stack and provides the level of flexibility and advanced features your team needs. Having the right tools is an essential part of executing your social content strategy efficiently.

9. How Will You Measure Content Performance & ROI?

Finally, to continually refine and improve your social media content strategy, you need to track your results and measure your return on investment (ROI).

Start by identifying the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are most relevant to your overarching social media goals. Some important social media metrics to track include:

• Reach and impressions
• Audience growth rate
• Post engagement rate (likes, comments, shares, etc.)
• Click-through rate
• Conversion rate
• Response rate and time (for social customer care)

Use the built-in analytics tools provided by each social network, along with the reporting dashboards in your social media management platform, to track these KPIs over time.

In addition to the standard vanity metrics, go a step further to measure the business impact and ROI of your social media content. For example, set up goals and conversion tracking in Google Analytics to see how much website traffic and sales your social posts are driving. Or use a tool like Hootsuite Impact to track the full customer journey from social media to purchase.

Create custom reports to share your results with key stakeholders on a regular basis. Be sure to provide context and insights, not just a data dump. Highlight key wins, areas for improvement, and your plans for optimizing your content strategy based on the data.

Commit to a continuous process of testing, measuring, and iterating to find the content mix that moves the needle for your brand. Over time, you‘ll be able to prove the value of your social media efforts and make data-driven decisions with confidence.

Putting It All Together

Becoming a master social media content strategist doesn‘t happen overnight. But by working through these nine essential questions, you‘ll be well on your way to structuring a winning content plan:

1. What are your social media marketing goals?

2. Who is your target audience on each social platform?

3. What types of content does your audience engage with most?

4. What is your brand voice on social media?

5. What is your optimal posting frequency on each network?

6. When are the best times to post for your audience?

7. What‘s your mix of created vs curated vs user-generated content?

8. What tools will you use to plan, schedule & measure content?

9. How will you measure content performance & ROI?

Remember, social media success is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes time, experimentation and constant iteration to land on the right content strategy for your brand.

But by keeping these key questions top of mind and using data to guide your decisions, you‘ll be able to develop a strong content foundation primed for ongoing growth and engagement. And that‘s definitely worth sharing about!