User-Centered Social Media Strategies

Users often have different expectations, wants, and needs when engaging with a company on social media versus a website. 

Should I use social media? if your users are using social media, you should too.

Here are some user-centered strategies applied to social media

1. Goals - Always start with creating goals, what do you expect to get out of the use of social media and how will you validate your efforts? How will you measure and track your success?
2. Know your users– understanding your users and who they are is essential to creating content that they will like, share, and comment on. 
3. Competitive Analysis– See what your competitors are doing, how are they using social media? This will not only help you be aware of what they are doing, but it will also help you spot opportunities or pain points users may be having. 
4. Expectations - You want to send messages that align with your users’ needs and their expectations. What information do your users expect from you? Is this information they want? 
5. Frequency: users often says that companies who posted too much were a top annoyance. look at similar companies and to your users to see how frequently they post and do some testing yourself. Once you find this sweet spot, be consistent with your frequency of messaging.

In order to succeed, keep your user at the center of your strategy and your posts.

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Lizzie Rice

‍Product Designer at PitchBook Data