By: Rachel Helmer
When it comes to finding the perfect recipe for social media success, your efforts should be akin more towards cooking up a great red sauce rather than baking a soufflé. Baking is a science, and to achieve cake-baking mastery, directions must be followed to a tee. No experimentation or little-of-this-little-of-that mentality here, lest you risk ending up with a droopy mess of a cake rather than a fluffy chocolate dream!
With cooking, however, there is more of a flexible art to achieving a delicious dish. Depending on what you are making, whom you are making it for, and why – i.e. a dinner party, a Mother’s Day brunch, or a romantic meal for two – you can employ a variety of different techniques to achieve the desired result.
With social media, we find a similar pattern. Success is dependent upon who your client is, what their core offering or brand goal is, and who they are trying to reach, and there are a variety of different methodologies and techniques that can be employed. What works well for one client might not work worth peanuts for another. The fact that there’s no one-size-fits-all recipe for social success can be challenging at times, but it’s also one of the best things about social media! Now, this is not to say you can’t use your experience working with other clients to your advantage, utilize that research, study your successes and you’re not-so-successes, and take those into consideration when planning your strategy and campaigns. Just make sure not to fall into too rigid of a methodology. Customize your strategy to fit your client and all their unique attributes and needs. Lastly, always be sure to stay open to change, and learning new things so you can flow with the ever-changing frontier of social media.