Introduction

Branding strategies help companies communicate their core values and identities. Therefore, shaping consistent brand messages throughout various platforms is essential to avoid conflicting messaging. This guide will explain six ways to synchronize your social media and content marketing strategies. We will also provide you with examples from popular brands for inspiration. 

Note that it is crucial to find the best web hosting for your site before beginning the brand marketing process. Web hosting can influence website performance and uptime, affecting the user experience and your overall brand reputation.  

Why Synchronize Social Media and Content Marketing Strategies

Each marketing channel functions differently in the sales funnel, whether to help increase brand awareness or capture new leads. 

So, connecting your digital marketing efforts, including content and social media marketing, is vital to streamline the process of driving conversions.  

Some of the key benefits of synchronizing content and social media efforts include maintaining consistency, avoiding confusion, and making a brand easily recognizable across marketing channels.

How to Synchronize Social Media and Content Marketing Strategies

Here are six simple ways to align your company’s social media strategy with its content marketing efforts.

1. Understand How Each Social Media Platform Works 

Each platform is different, from the audience and algorithm to best practices, affecting how well your posts perform.

Here are some general guidelines for top social media sites:

  • Facebook. The biggest demographic group on Facebook is male users between 25 to 34 years old. The content type gaining the most engagement on Facebook is live videos. 
  • TikTok. This short video platform is the best option for targeting Generation Z because they account for around 40% of TikTok’s user base. 
  • Instagram. As a visual-heavy network, Instagram likes attention-grabbing photos and videos, like infographics and Reels. 
  • Twitter. Over 45% of people use Twitter for news and entertainment, making it a great platform to casually engage with users and share company or industry updates.  

2. Align the Social Strategy With Your Business Goals

After knowing the different social media platforms’ purposes, align the marketing strategies with your business goals, target audience, and brand identity.  

For example, a new online store that wants to increase sales and engage with a younger audience can use Instagram. 

More than 60% of Instagram users are 34 years and younger. Furthermore, this platform has a built-in marketplace, so consumers can buy a product without leaving the site. You can also use Instagram features like Reels and Stories to connect with the audience. 

We recommend using two to three platforms to grow a social media presence and adjusting your approach based on each platform’s purpose. However, avoid targeting all social channels since producing relevant posts for social media can be overwhelming, and your audience may not even frequent certain channels.

3. Make the Style Consistent Across Social Media Channels

Communicating based on the social network’s characteristics is important, but drastic changes in style and voice on different platforms can confuse customers. 

Therefore, create a brand guideline to help build consistent and synchronized social media campaigns. 

Check social media analytics to determine your audience segments and understand their preferred form and style of communication. Then, use this information to outline the general brand identity and tone of voice. 

Skype’s brand guideline, for example, includes several buyer personas, their pain points, and how they speak. 

4. Produce Diversified Content 

Cross-posting is an effective way to share content on multiple social networks without overwhelming your team. However, constantly posting the same content across all social channels can make a brand look dull. 

Doing so may also harm your social campaigns’ quality, as different content types render differently depending on each platform. For example, posting a TikTok video on Instagram may result in certain parts of the video being cut off due to dimension incompatibility. 

To avoid this, repurpose content based on each platform’s characteristics. 

Wendy’s is a great example of this practice. To celebrate National Roast Day, the restaurant shared video content compiling Twitter thread screenshots on Instagram. 

On Twitter, Wendy’s also often Retweets its followers’ mentions, or quotes their Tweets and adds a witty comment specific to their tone of voice – an approach they don’t generally implement on other channels. 

Another way to synchronize your social media and content marketing strategies is to promote one platform’s content on another. For example, Jack Edwards shares his YouTube video links on his Twitter profile. 

5. Create a Content Calendar

Producing content on multiple social media accounts can get overwhelming. Therefore, organize upcoming social posts using a content calendar to help you keep track. Consider including these elements in your calendar:

  • Social network platform to publish the content. 
  • Topic or title. 
  • Type of content – a personalized video, illustration, or photo.
  • Publishing date and time.
  • Person in charge of the post.

Your marketing team can schedule posts using a spreadsheet, Google Calendar, or project management software like Trello. A business with more budget to spare can also purchase a social media management tool like Sprout Social to oversee multiple platforms on one dashboard and publish content automatically. 

6. Connect Blog and Social Media Posts

Integrating social media on web pages helps your social channels gain more exposure from backlinks. Three ways to do this include:

  • Adding social media icons across your website.
  • Displaying social feeds on the homepage.
  • Showing social media updates and sharing buttons on blog posts. 

Most social media platforms provide a step-by-step guide on how to do this, but WordPress users can install specific plugins for social media integration. For example, a plugin like Novashare helps add social sharing buttons on each blog post, while Smash Balloon can display customizable social media feeds on a website.

Conclusion

Synchronized content and social media strategies are essential to produce consistent brand messaging and avoid confusing potential customers. 

Here are six methods to synchronize your social media and content marketing strategies:

  • Know each social channel’s characteristics. 
  • Connect the social media effort with the business goals. 
  • Create a brand guideline to help produce consistent messaging. 
  • Repurpose content according to the platform’s features.
  • Utilize a content calendar. 
  • Add social media feeds, posts, and icons to your website. 

We hope this article has helped align your content and social media marketing strategy. Now that you are well-equipped with the steps, it is time to implement them for your brand.