What Consistency In Social Media Marketing Means
Do you roll your eyes when you hear the all too familiar phrase “Consistency is Key” when it comes to succeeding on social media?
There is a lot of wisdom in these words, but the saying is so often used that it has seemed to have lost its true meaning. Firstly, consistency in social media doesn't mean constantly posting to the point of burnout — which is an especially common problem for solopreneurs.
So, what does it mean to be consistent in social media anyway?
Consistency in social media marketing encompasses three separate but related categories that ultimately boils down to your brand being instantly recognizable when someone is scrolling through their feed.
Branding, messaging, and frequency all factor into consistency when it comes to content creation for social media. Here is a guide to each element to streamline your on-brand posting strategy.
1. Branding for Social Media Consistency
Aesthetics is the visual hallmark of your brand. A recognizable logo, color palette, and fonts readers can associate with your brand makes it stand out from the rest.
Design tools like Canva allow you to create custom brand palettes. These essential brand elements can be saved onto templates that you can reuse to stay consistent in your graphic design and save time in your content creation process.
Read more about How To Easily Write Content When You Have No Time.
2. Messaging for Social Media Consistency
Unlike a fancy logo or beautifully curated Instagram grid layout, a content strategy that includes consistent messaging isn’t just nice to have; it is the foundation for all messaging in your business.
Your Mission Statement, Unique Selling Proposition, Brand Values, and Content Pillars all dictate consistent messaging that allows your audience to easily identify what your brand stands for in the marketplace.
Mission Statement:
A mission statement is a sentence or short paragraph that defines the why of a brand. It gets at the heart of the why defining the reasoning and motivations behind why your business exists in the first place.
Unique Selling Proposition:
At its core, a Unique Selling Proposition answers the question, Why should I choose your business over the competition?
A unique selling proposition, more commonly referred to as a USP, is the one thing that makes your business better than the competition. It’s a specific benefit that makes your business stand out when compared to other businesses in your market, as defined by the e-commerce experts at Shopify.
A great USP highlights your strengths based on what makes your brand or product uniquely valuable to your customers. Focus your USP on what your customers value because being “unique” doesn’t mean much if it’s not something your target audience truly cares about.
Brand Values:
Brand values are a set of guiding core principles that shape every aspect of your brand. They dictate your brand message, identity, and how you approach business as a whole.
These questions can help you define your brand values:
What do I consider the most important when conducting my business?
What does my brand stand for beyond the offerings I provide?
What are the most important factors to consider before I make a long-term business decision?
Want to see what this looks like in action? Read 5 Companies with Core Values that Stand Above the Rest.
Content Pillars:
Sometimes called a content bucket or a brand pillar, a content pillar is a subset of a topic or theme that forms the foundation for your overall content strategy. Your content pillars are the intersection of your expertise and what your audience desires.
For example, if you’re a health coach, your pillars might be vegan nutrition, meditative yoga, and mindful journaling. Each of those pillars is a very specific subject that you could create content around to establish your authority in that field and help your audience learn more about.
When you’re trying to talk to everyone, you end up talking to no one, so don’t fall into the common fear of niching down to serve a very specific audience.
You should have at least three pillars, but no more than five. Three is best for those just starting out. These should be topics you can easily speak with authority on when a client has a question.
One of my favorite questions to unlock this level of content creation clarity is What Could You Give a 30-Minute TED Talk Right Now?
3. Frequency for Social Media Consistency
Showing up regularly for your audience on social media is one of the hallmarks of a successful content marketing strategy.
When someone visits your social media profile, they want to know that you are active and providing valuable information on a consistent basis. Think about it this way, if a brand didn’t post on Facebook for eight months, would you follow them for insights? I think not!
Here are a Few Pointers for Posting Regularly on Social Media:
Decide how often you’re going to post and on what platforms. Showing up consistently on social media is about finding a content schedule that works for you. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking consistently means constantly posting to every platform daily. Different social media platforms require different levels of frequency to be considered consistent. Read more about How to Pick the Best Social Media Platforms for Your Small Business.
Plug your ideas into a content management system. Tools like Trello will help you stay on track with your social media posting schedule by giving you a visual do-to list on what needs to be done and when it needs to be completed. Consider content format when plugging in your ideas. For example, is this post a video or a static post. This will help you set aside the time you need to produce the content.
Batch your content. At its heart, content batching —or tasks in general — is when you set aside a specific time to focus on one project until it’s complete.
It’s a highly strategic set-it-and-forget-it technique that ends inconsistency. The amount of content and when you publish it is integral to any savvy content strategy.
Here is an example of a content batching schedule:
Monday: Research content ideas and plugging them into a content calendar.
Tuesday: Research and write captions/ /video scripts.
Wednesday: Create graphics, videos, or take photos.
Thursday: Schedule out content for the next week.
Read more about How to Create a Content Batching Schedule that works for you.
Consistency encompasses three separate but related categories that ultimately boils down to your brand being instantly recognizable when someone is scrolling through their feed. Your branding, messaging, and frequency all factor into consistency in content creation for social media.
Consider them all when you are creating to develop your own formula for consistency and brand recognition that will position you as an authority in your industry.
Happy Creating!
Cyndi, Owner of Ascent StoryCraft
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