My Social Media Management Process in 2024

Feb 20

My first experience managing social media accounts was in high school, when I ran the Instagram for the business club. Needless to say, I didn’t know what I was doing. The content was all over the place: I had no organization, a minimal understand of the audience, and absolutely no goal in mind other than to create a somewhat decent-looking page.

Now that I have managed social media accounts through my internships and have worked as content creator, both at my university and personally through podcasting, I have seen tremendous improvement and results simply by understanding the basics of the social media process. Having a process allows me to stay organized and evaluate my performance.

This process is defined as a social media workflow. According to Hootsuite, “A social media workflow is a system for managing your social media post creation, publication, and promotion. This includes tasks like drafting posts, scheduling them to post at specific times, approving content before sharing it with your followers, and measuring performance by analyzing the results.” In short, it consists of the necessary steps for running a social media account, from ideation to posting to analyzing.

The following is my basic social media workflow in ten simple steps.

1. Keep The Core at the Center

Brand is everything. According to Seth Godin, “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” The best place for brands to build up this expectation and kindle relationships in 2024 is through social media.

Your core consists of your mission, vision, and values. A majority of brands already have these established. However, if these essential pieces are missing, take a moment to think through them.

Sometimes, these three essentials can get mixed up. They are not interchangeable. Here are simple definitions of each.

Mission: What you hope to achieve. What’s your goal?

Vision: What will happen if you achieve your mission. What do you see?

Values: Traits that are essential non-negotiables. What’s your character?

2. Understand Your Audience

Social media requires two components: media and socialization. In order to socialize with your audience, you need to understand who they are. “Nothing good really comes out of just putting your content out there and hoping for the best,” according the Sprout Social. “When you have a clear idea of who your audience is, you’ll run more relevant campaigns that resonate.”

Typically, your brand will have defined the target market. However, if the target audience has not been defined, take the time to narrow it down and learn about them.

The whole idea behind content creation is simple: create content that people want to watch. The execution of this, however, is what is hard. Sometimes, creators think they know what their audience wants to watch, when they don’t. I’ve seen myself do this in my own roles! This is why research is crucial. Creating user personas, where you put a name to the statistics, can also be very helpful.

3. Set The Goal

Now that you’ve reflected on the brand you’re posting for, you can set a benchmark to reach. What do you hope to accomplish for the brand? This can be in the form of engagement, followers, or conversions. Using the SMART goals method can also help.

Specific: Your goal needs to be direct. It should also be simple to speak.

Measurable: You need a way to “keep score” and see if you’re on your way to reaching the goal.

Attainable: Make sure this is something you can actually do given the resources you have.

Relevant: The goal should fit your purpose.

Time: There should be a time limit for when you should reach the goal.

Check out some charts about SMART goals here.

4. Research Your Competitors

Yes, “comparison is the thief of joy.” But researching your competitors allows you to fill in the gaps of what’s missing in your field, while also seeing what works and what doesn’t. According to Hootsuite, a social media competitor analysis is “a process of benchmarking your own results against the heavy-hitters in your industry, so you can identify opportunities for growth as well as strategies that aren’t performing as well as they should.”

Start by making a list of 3-5 competitors. Then, look up their social media pages. Look at the type of content they are posting. Are there a lot of images or graphics? Perhaps they’re more video heavy.

As you look, save some of the posts and compile them in a document with your notes. This will come in handy when you start to come up with content ideas. By having a better understanding of your competitors, you’ll have joy later in the process.

5. Look Up To Your Aspirants

Now that you’ve researched your competitors, it’s time to have fun looking at accounts you admire. But not just any accounts – you want to look for those that are comparable to your brand but are aspirants that you want to reach. You will want to compile some of their posts into your document, but don’t worry about adding as much as you did for your competitors. The idea behind this step is to give you an idea of what is possible for your account.

6. Ideate

The step in the process is when you finally get to come up with your own ideas from content. After reflecting on your brand and doing some research on other accounts, start to brainstorm ideas. You can either create a long list or write something on paper, just like a mind map.

When it comes to ideation, don’t disqualify any of your ideas – even if you know deep down that there’s a high chance they won’t work. This is not the time to cut anything out, but to accept everything that comes to mind. In the ideation stage of the design thinking process, “Participants gather with open minds to produce as many ideas as they can to address a problem statement in a facilitated, judgment-free environment” (Interaction Design Foundation). This step is about quantity. Save the decision making for your next step.

7. Determine Your Direction

Now that you have a huge list of ideas, it’s time to narrow it down. When coming up with your final ideas, try to find those that will provide the most value to your audience.

Then, cater each idea you have to the platforms you will be using. Every platform has different features you can use for content. For example, on Instagram, you can post a variety of photos or graphics, reels, and stories. LinkedIn, however, is more copy-heavy and relies less on video (although this is slowly changing). Understanding what is most effective for each platform will help you in the long run.

Put these ideas into a project management system, such as Monday.com, Asana, or Notion. This is where you can keep a running content calendar, which is “a rundown of your upcoming posts organized by date and time” (HubSpot). I organize my content calendars into the following categories:

Creative: The name you are giving the content (Ex. “Coffeehouse Chat Recap Reel”)

Date: The day on which the post will be published.

Time: The time at which the post will be published. Finding the ideal time to post requires trial and error, and I often find that there is no set answer.

Caption: The copy that will be used in association with the image/video.

File: Upload the file into your content calendar. That way, you will easily be able to associate your creative’s name with the actual piece of content.

Status: I use the following categories to note the progress for each piece of content.

Creative Needed: This content still needs to be started.
Working On It: It has been started, but is not ready to be posted.
Scheduled: Can be scheduled within the platform itself or using some other software, such as Loomly, Hootsuite, or Buffer.
Manual Post: For files that are too large to be scheduled (this typically happens when you use a free version of a scheduling app), make a reminder for yourself to post the content yourself.
Posted: Once you have published the content you made, mark it as completed.

Notes: This is a place to jot down associated ideas. It could be a link to a reference, or a special instruction.

The key to building a strong social media account is to post valuable content that resonates with your audience. That’s all it is. If you fail to get your audience’s attention and provide content that resonates with them, it will be more difficult to grow on social media.

At this point (or step 8) I will usually ask my supervisor for feedback and approval.

8. Execute The Vision

You’ve organized all your ideas and came up with your content strategy. But ideas don’t mean anything until you put them into practice. This is the most fun part of the process — making the actual pieces of content themselves!

I use Adobe Creative Cloud during this step of the process because it is industry standard software. However, there are also other tools available, such as Canva, which are not as intuitive, but can suffice for more basic posts.

Once you’ve finished making something, schedule it or make a note to post it manually. Make sure to keep track of your progress in your content calendar.

After you’ve posted the content, make sure to monitor your posts for comments. I try to respond or reply to any comment I receive (unless the comment is rude or overwhelmingly negative).

9. Analyze

About once I week, I take the time to review the analytics on each of my platforms. According to Brandwatch, “Analyzing multiple social media metrics allows you to derive actionable insights that help you improve your social media strategy overall.” Check to see the reach of your accounts, the number of likes and comments, and if you gained any new followers. Although a lot of these factors are vanity metrics, they are a good indicator of health. Depending on the goals that you set, some of these metrics will be more important to you than others. For example, when it comes to one of the accounts I manage, I care far more about reach and engagement than I do the number of followers.

Based on your analytics, see how close or far you are from reaching your goals. Then, adjust based on more research and ideation. Much of social media is trial and error, and because things change so quickly, the answer is typically never set in stone. Stay up to date with changes and new advancements in the social media space so that you don’t catch yourself getting left behind.

10. Repeat

Just like the Design Thinking process, there is no end to managing social media accounts. Once you analyze and find some things that can be improved, you’ll go back to executing, or researching, or ideating, or perhaps reevaluating your brand strategy altogether.

Being a social media manager takes a lot of time and effort, and it seems to never end. The solution is to enjoy the process. As you continue to grow and evolve as a creator, you start to reach your goals and begin to set better ones. The process is a long journey and helps to enjoy it every step of the way.