This article is going to be a little embarrassing for me, because I have to pull back the veil a bit. In this new year, one thing I definitely, definitely have to work on is my social media strategy. To grow my brand and my business, I have to improve my social media engagement. This article outlines my plan to both create and engage with content.

Thus far, I have not been strategic at all with using social media to grow my brand and business. I’ve always felt a little like a fish out of water with social media strategy. But, this is important for me and I’m going to get it together.

There are a few reasons why this is a priority for me.

Firstly, I want to be of service to others. I am deeply committed to helping people start businesses and build strong personal brands. I can help people for free by sharing information online. If I have more engagement, I can help more people.

Secondly, I want to build my brand. Dynamic content on social media displays my expertise and knowledge for people who don’t know me. Highlighting my knowledge will build my reputation and build connections with people who follow me. Which leads to my third point….

Thirdly, I want to grow my business. Connections on social media can turn into customers. A business needs customers to stay alive, and mine ain’t trying to die young.

Therefore, I need a social media plan that allows me to focus on these priorities. I was going to keep this plan to myself, but I’ve gotten a lot of questions recently about what to do on social media, so I’m going to share my plan here.

Hopefully, this can help both me and other people looking for more social media engagement in 2020 and beyond.

The Strategy

First, here’s a breakdown of my social media strategy for 2020. There are two ways to build social media engagement: (1) create content, and (2) engage with content. I’m going to break my strategy down into these two components.

Creating Content

I’ve created this content strategy using a combination of suggestions from Brendon Burchard and Jasmine Star, two very successful entrepreneurs who have built amazing brands and businesses online.

1. Create long form content once per week. For me, “long form content” will be a blog post that features an episode of my new web series and podcast, The Shontavia Show. I’ll publish a blog post at the beginning of each week.
2. Break up long form content for social media. I’ll use each blog post as social media content for one week. I’ll break the blog post up multiple ways so that I get a long runway of posts for each week. This way, I won’t be struggling to come up with social media posts each day. And, I’ve already basically written it in the blog post.
3. Email my list once per week. I already capture email addresses for my #MakeItHappenMonday newsletter and send out an email each Monday. I’ll start using the newsletter to direct readers to my long form content.

Engage with Content

Secondly, I will engage with other people’s content on social media using Gary Vaynerchuk’s $1.80 method, which he breaks down in the below video.

Gary’s basic advice is to leave your “two cents” on 9 different posts for the top 10 hashtags in your field each day.

Social Media Calendar

One of the hardest things for me has been figuring out what to talk about on social media. So, this year, I’m going to make a plan that tells me what to talk about.

First, I’ve created a social media calendar that outlines a theme for each week. My long form content, social media posts, and weekly emails will revolve around these weekly themes.

For more on social media calendars, check out Step 7 of my blog post, Build a website you’re proud of in 8 steps.

In addition, to stay on track with my social media posts, I will sit down at least a week in advance and plan my posts for the week.

Finally, I’ve created a schedule of when I will post on social media. I created this schedule using the tips from multiple sources. The best source is this CoSchedule blog article, How Often To Post On Social Media? [Proven Research From 14 Studies].

• Facebook (business page and personal account):
  • 1 time per day
• Instagram
  • 2 times per day
• LinkedIn
  • 1 time per day
• Tik Tok (whew, pray for me on this one, because I have no clue how Tik Tok works yet!)
  • 1 time per day
• Twitter
  • 10 times per day

This schedule is very aggressive for me, but I am committed to growing my business with social media so I’ve gotta figure out how to make it happen!

Do any of these strategies resonate with you? Can you use any of them in your world? If so, please steal them!

I’d love to hear how things go with you as your build and grow your own social media engagement. Tag me on any of the below platforms to let me know how things go for you.