The Digital Marketing Podcast

Episode: Social Media Process & Planning
Hosts: Daniel Rowles & Ciaran Rogers
Date: April 24, 2018

Episode Overview

In this episode, Daniel Rowles and Ciaran Rogers break down the essentials of creating effective social media processes and planning strategies, using practical tools and actionable frameworks. They highlight why structure is vital—especially as teams and ambitions grow—and share actionable tips for maximizing impact while minimizing wasted effort. Key areas discussed include content calendars, policy-making, templating, process management, social CRM, analytics, and practical governance.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Importance of a Process in Social Media Management

• Time consumption & risk of ad hoc workflows
  • Social media can easily become time-intensive and fragmented.
  • Without a process, consistency and engagement suffer.
  • "You can be absolutely busy constantly getting stuff out there and not really getting any traction just because the lack of actual social engagement..." – Daniel (01:09)
• The “Hub and Spoke” Approach
  • Centralizes core policies, tools, and resources, while empowering distributed team members.
  • Essential for organizations of any size; prevents bottlenecks and burnout.
  • "Even if you've got kind of five people, you need to think about this because otherwise what happens if everything's going through one person, that person will get so bogged down, it'll be incredible." – Daniel (02:27)

2. Foundational Tools of Social Media Planning

• Content Calendar (03:15)
  • Beyond scheduling—incorporate keyword research, outreach, and optimization aspects.
  • Updated templates available from Target Internet.
  • "It's not just to plan what you're publishing and when, but to maximize your channel usage." – Daniel (02:53)
• Social Media Policy (04:22)
  • Should guide positive behavior ("do this") with examples, not just restrictions.
  • Living document, regularly referenced.
• Outreach Templates & Lists (04:55)
  • Pre-identify advocates and influencers for proactive outreach.
  • Customizable email templates speed up communication.

3. Graphic Templates and Easy Content Creation

• Canva (05:30–06:00)
  • Team-branding, stock photo management, free and paid templates.
  • Budget tip: Remove premium template elements to avoid charges.
  • "So you can cheat a little bit and remove those paid for elements if you’re on a tight budget." – Ciaran (05:41)

4. Process and Task Management

• Asana, Basecamp, and Wrike (06:00–07:30)
  • Streamline task ownership and approval flows.
  • Leadership buy-in and consistent culture needed.
  • "If I were actually using Asana properly, that would not be a problem." – Daniel (06:37)
  • Free versions can be sufficient for many teams.
• Social CRM Tools (07:32)
  • Hootsuite, SocialReport, Conversocial for managing engagement and customer threads.
  • Assign tasks, manage conversations at scale.

5. Social Media Monitoring

• Tools from Hootsuite (free/columns) for SMBs to Brandwatch for corporates.
• Monitoring is essential for insight and rapid response.

6. Analytics and Measuring ROI

• The Challenge

  • Gaining meaningful ROI data from social media is tough but critical.
  • "Measuring return on investment is a real challenge with it in a lot of cases. But there are some steps that you can take to really supercharge that." – Ciaran (09:48)

• Solution: Trackable Links & Consistent Analytics (10:02–13:00)

  • Use UTM parameters for every social post to identify channel, source, campaign, and keyword.
  • Hootsuite can auto-insert GA tracking codes.
  • Consistency is vital (e.g., lowercase only).
  • Use shared spreadsheets to standardize codes.
  • "By tracking it at that sort of level, it's lovely because actually you can roll everything up into social media as an overall overarching way of dispersing your content. But then you can also drill down and break it down into Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn..." – Ciaran (11:15)

• URL Shorteners (14:50)

  • Keep links tidy while preserving tracking.

7. Governance & Trust

• Empowered Teams
  • Use policy as the conditional "license" for content posting—approval only needed for exceptions.
  • "You can get on with it as long as you adhere to the social media policy so you don't need to come back for sign off of everything." – Daniel (15:19)
• Guidance for Monitoring & Escalation (15:37)
  • Include monitoring frequencies and escalation processes in policy.
  • Reference: Social Media Governance site for sample policies.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On process necessity:
  "Unless you have a really good, good process behind all this, it slips." — Daniel (00:37)

• On the value of a policy:
  "What we really want is a policy that says, don't do this, but you should do this. And here are five great examples...should be a working document that people find useful enough that they refer back to it all the time as well." — Daniel (04:22)

• On staying budget-conscious with Canva:
  "You can cheat a little bit and remove those paid for elements if you’re on a tight budget." — Ciaran (05:41)

• On analytics consistency:
  "It's really important that you keep this consistent and agree. I always insist that they're always lowercase, like never any uppercase letters in the tracking codes." — Ciaran (12:18)

• Analytics analogy:
  "Every link to your website is like a door into the building...what the Google Analytics tracking code does is it effectively enables you to line up three or four trays of paint...so when people visit your, your house, they tread in those different paint pots and you get a lovely little trail..." — Ciaran (13:00)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:19 – Introduction to the episode theme
• 01:09 – Risks of ad hoc social media management
• 02:27 – Applicability of process to all org sizes
• 03:15 – Content calendar explanation
• 04:22 – Social media policy details
• 05:30 – Canva and template tips
• 06:00 – Task and process management with Asana etc.
• 07:32 – Social CRM tools intro
• 08:30 – Social media monitoring tools
• 09:48 – Challenge of measuring ROI in social
• 11:15 – How tracking codes unlock deep ROI analysis
• 13:00 – Analytics analogy: paint and doors
• 14:50 – URL shorteners for tracking links
• 15:19 – Empowering teams with defined policies
• 15:37 – Policy for escalation & monitoring

Resources Mentioned

• Target Internet Content Calendar & Podcast
• Canva (canva.com)
• Asana, Basecamp, Wrike (project management)
• Hootsuite, SocialReport.com, Conversocial (social CRM)
• Brandwatch (monitoring)
• Social Media Governance (repository of policies)
• Google Analytics URL Builder & UTM tracking
• Free Google Spreadsheet for campaign consistency

Final Thoughts

The episode provides a detailed, practical roadmap to creating a robust social media process, emphasizing that getting organized isn’t just for big companies. Consistent use of tools, thoughtful analytics, policy guidance, and deliberate team empowerment are the keys to sustainable success on social channels.

For more details—including downloadable templates and referenced resources—see the show notes at Target Internet.