As we get closer and closer to the holidays and possibly taking winter breaks before the new year, you may notice you have more time to plan for the new year. So when you have some slow days in the office, in-person or virtual, use your time wisely doing some social media prep for the new year.

The first thing on your list should be conducting a social media audit. You want to ask yourself the following questions: What is working? What’s not working? What social media platforms do your target audience respond to the most? How does your social media presence compare to similar organizations? Once you gather answers to these questions, start brainstorming ways to improve. For example, you may need to update your Twitter Lists to stay connected to partners. Maybe you notice your Instagram Reels are doing well, so you may want to try TikTok for the new year. Perhaps you see your competitor posting less during the week, so you may want to experiment with decreasing posts. You want to create content well-suited to a specific social media platform rather than trying to keep up with every new feature.

Next, you want to review your social media reports from the year. You want to ask yourself the following questions: What were the trends for successful posts for the year? What were the trends for low-performing posts for the year? How much web referral traffic came from social media? How many engagements did you have on each social media platform? What was your most successful and unsuccessful campaign of the year? How can we adjust our strategies to improve campaigns? All social media key performance indicators (KPIs) can tell whether you are meeting and achieving your goals. Use the correct metrics to tell the right story and showcase your social media return on investment (ROI).

One last thing, you want to review your search engine optimization (SEO) practices. ALT text describes the contents of an image within HTML code. Adding alt text to photos on social media makes your content more accessible. Also, it helps search engines index images to increase SEO success. If you are still trying to figure out where to start, I recommend reviewing this resource: https://www.accessible-social.com.

Social Media can get siloed in many organizations, but you have the power to change that! Once your social media prep is in line, you can guarantee your social media strategy will fully align with your organization’s goals.

Author: Paulette Wilson

Paulette Wilson is a Social Media Manager in Maryland. She has nearly a decade of experience creating strategic social media campaigns for news stations, nonprofit organizations, and higher education institutions.

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