Should your social media strategy take more of a channel-specific approach? The short answer: Yes.

However, creating channel-specific content isn’t that simple. In fact, the same reasons suggesting you should create a channel-specific social media strategy—platform best practices, content performance, and audience preferences—may double as reasons to keep things simple.

Nailing down a targeted social media approach requires research, clarity, and—most importantly—patience. Here are 3 things you need to know before taking your social media strategy to the next level with a channel-specific approach.

1. Know Your Goals

First things first: figure out why you’re creating content for social media so you can determine the next best steps.

The Internet is already littered with content, which makes it tough to cut through the clutter. Pinpointing specific goals will not only help you determine which platforms to use…but also how you should use them.

For instance, if your goal is to generate awareness among Millennials, Instagram may be a great place to start. However, with Instagram delivering limited organic reach, supplementing your strategy with paid efforts or influencer activations will help you broaden your reach and generate more awareness.

If your goal is to increase sales, platforms like Pinterest may be the best place to focus your energy, especially considering 9 in 10 people use Pinterest for purchase inspiration. But, from a creative perspective, Pinterest claims Pins that show people using your product are typically much more likely to drive conversions.

Once your goals are set, it’s important to measure success with KPIs that can be tracked over time. Here’s a chart you can use to identify measurable social media KPIs.

Bear in mind, there is no perfect science to analyzing and measuring KPIs. There will always be overlap between interactions and success. However, being able to use data to spot trends and make informed decisions will elevate your content strategy to new levels.

2. Know Your Audience

Once your goals are established, the next step is to determine who your best customers are, what challenges they’re facing, why they’d want to engage with your brand, and where they’re spending their time on the Internet.

One creative way to organize this information is to put a face to your best customers, illustrating unique audience personas compiled from research, data, and insights.

Knowing how your audience walks and talks allows you to:

1. Reach your customers on the platforms they frequent most


2. Create channel-specific content they want to consume


3. Turn passive audiences into engaged ambassadors

By placing your audience at the center of your content strategy, you’ll be able to create hyper-targeted media plans, test creative concepts more efficiently, engage with people more purposefully. Over time, you will notice higher engagement, more conversions, and increased loyalty as you build trust, turning your audience into a full-blown community.

3. Know Your Platforms

Part of creating a channel-specific social media strategy requires knowing how to optimize content for specific channels.

For instance, it’s not a best practice to link to a blog article from your Instagram feed because Instagram posts don’t easily allow users to click outside of the app. However, you might consider turning your blog article into an Instagram carousel, leading to a rich, informative in-app experience.

Likewise, it’s not a best practice to post a Tweet to Pinterest because Pinterest is a highly visual search platform where text-only content tends to take a back seat. However, you might consider adapting Pinterest infographics or listacles into robust Twitter threads.

Based on your goals, identify which types of content performs best across the channels your audience tends to frequent. Then, merge that knowledge with the type of content you know your audience prefers to consume.

Test, measure, optimize, and repeat to create a channel-specific social media strategy that’s sure to resonate.

A brand’s social media strategy should be fluid, evolving over time to make sure the content being posted is timely and relevant. That’s why it’s important to routinely question your approach, taking trends, research, and analytics into account. Fortunately, that’s our specialty here at AGAIN Interactive.

Let’s Create Together

Want to elevate your brand’s content strategy? Drop us a line at info@againinteractive.com. Your success is how we measure ours.