1.
Content Strategy & Social
Media: A Symbiotic
Relationship
UW CERTIFICATE IN STORYTELLING AND CONTENT STRATEGY
NOV. 23, 2015
SUNA GUROL

2.
Symbiotic relationship
Without great content
social media has no
purpose
Without social media
your content will be
limited in its reach

3.
What do you think about the relationship
between social media and content strategy?

4.
Social Media is #1
Most popular
content channel
tactic for brands

5.
#1 and rising

6.
Social Media - in a nutshell
Mouthpiece, but not a monologue
Content is valuable and valuable content is priceless.
Aim is to provide value.
In the best world there is a relationship, community and
dialogue
Speed! Real-time! Disappearing content!
Branding
70 / 20 / 10 rule – 70% share information, 20
collaborations, 10% you
Real measurement
Helps drive content strategy (more on this later)

7.
Facebook
Friends and family network..
Demographic: 77% of FB users are women. 82% of online adults
has an account. Most popular channel with nearly 1.5 billion users.
Media: Photos, posts, links, videos. Still working on animated gifs.
Best practices: Members highly engaged on a daily basis, so daily
posts are good. Consistent posting works best.
Advertising: Easy and relatively cheap, targeting, A/B testing. Yay!
How to engage as a brand: tag partners, share posts
like brand pages, polls, respond to comments/comment
on other pages
Facebook insights: Good information on your followers - popular posts, audience
demographics, track likes
Biggest problems: FB algorithm is capricious, changes overnights. Not always clear
what will get traction and visibility.

8.
Twitter
Microblogging network
Demographics: Twitter users skew younger, in addition
Internet users living in urban areas are more likely than
their suburban or rural counterparts to use Twitter.
Media: Text, links, photos, animated GIF’s, short video
Best practices: short URL’s, Retweet, Hashtags help
expand content reach, Twitters Lists, can stand frequent
posts, good for 2-way communication – TwitterChat
Advertising: Easy to advertise, native appearance.
Biggest problems: Internal turmoil at company means
product and vision under adjustment, pivoting, unclear
about future. Can’t schedule posts unless you have ads
set up. Not a lot of info on your followers.

9.
Pinterest
Cataloguing network. Inspirational channel –
believes it is a “tool for unlocking creativity”.
Demographic: 31% of online adults, 44% of online
women. Male members are gaining.
Media: Pictures, short videos.
Best practices: High-value content – professional
photos, infographics. Good for B-C and cataloging.
Biggest problem: Niche. Simplistic, but hard to ‘get’
for some people. Unclear on its application in B-B.

10.
Instagram
A repository of memory
Demographic: 83% under 40, 55% under 29. Very popular with
younger adults, people of color.
Best practices: Members highly engaged on a daily basis, so daily
posts are good. Good for events, as-it-happens, visual only content.
Great for sharing visual stories.
Media: Images & short videos only
Biggest problem: Mobile-only, limited tools.
Future is bright, as it is a part of Facebook.

11.
LinkedIn
Business networking
Demographics: Evenly distributed among the adult age
groups, for working professionals. LinkedIn is the only major
social media platform for which usage rates are higher
among 30- to 49-year-olds than among 18- to 29-year-olds.
Media: Images, links, posts. No animated gif or video
uploads.
Best Practices: Use of photos, links more effective than
posts. Similar to Facebook.
Advertising: Seemingly ideal for advertising, but not having
a lot of success yet. Better luck advertising on Twitter &
Facebook.
Biggest problem: Simplistic tools for posting, advertising.

12.
YouTube
Videos only
Demographics: Huge audience, huge age spread.
Advertising: YouTube is expected to generate $5.6
billion in gross revenue in 2016. Currently, there are 6
billion hours of video watched on YouTube per month
and 1 billion videos watched over mobile phones per
day. Good place to advertise, simple interface.
Best practices:
Biggest problem: Not much. Now more competition
from streaming services. Probably needs to think about
getting into a original content to compete with
Netflicks.

13.
Others
SnapChat – Quickie messaging app to share videos and images and chat. Lasts 10 seconds. Young
demographic directly mostly to teens, younger adults. Fun. Interface is almost too simplistic.
Tumblr – Short-form blogging. Can have great community. Owned by Yahoo.
Google+ – Used for relationship marketing. Keeps trying to die, but keeps rising from the dead.
Good SEO though!

14.
Partnering with social media strategist

15.
What to do for success
Define Goals
Identify Audience
Establish Baseline
Content!!!
Short and Visual
Micro-moments
Dialogue
Cross-Channel
Monitor, measure, rinse
and repeat
Prepare for the unexpected

16.
Goals
Identify what the goals are --
◦ To get people to the website?
◦ To register? To download?
◦ Capture leads?
◦ More likes/follows?
• Brand awareness?
• Thought leadership
Goals needs to support the business but also
connect with the audience.
And make sure everyone - from C-suite to
Marketing Assistant - is in agreement about the
goals!

17.
Audience
Who are you trying to reach?
Is it a new or existing audience?
If existing audience, what do you know
about them?
oFacebook insights, Google analytics,
Twitter analytics
oWeb searches
oAudience surveys, usability studies
Personas – Helpful in figuring out your main
audience archetypes

18.
Baseline and Tracking
Baseline - Get a baseline of likes,
followers, average post
likes/shares/comments, and current
sales/donations, clicks BEFORE you put
up your content.
Track as you go along and pivot content
Review after campaign to see how
audience responded.

19.
Content
Authentic
Personalize your company, entertain
Be a resource – Thought Leadership
Promotion (but must have value) – good
imagery, storytelling, news-y, useful

20.
Short and Visual
Short Stories - Think how to impart
your message in 70-100 characters.
Quick Visuals - What kinds of
images will work with this content?

21.
Micro-moments
Mobile has forever changed what we
expect of brands. ”Fractured the
customer journey.”
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/colle
ctions/micromoments.html
Uncover moments that matter, take
advantage and work fast.
But - have something interesting,
relevant to say.

22.
Cross-Channel Promotion
Unify the message to works across all channels
while tailoring the strategies used on each
channel to ensure maximum success.
Identify what social media channels make the
most sense to utilize for the campaign.
Typically website, blog, Facebook and Twitter,
but could also use Instagram, Snapchat,
YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn depending on
what your company does.

23.
Dialogue
Be prepared to have an online dialogue
about your content and the story on social
media.
Good to strategize ahead, however...
The conversations may go in directions that
you don't plan for.

24.
Measure, rinse and repeat
Feedback - likes, shares, comments,
reach, RT's.
Who is responding? Examine the
audience.
Opportunity - Expand on the content
Keep, refine or pivot the strategy

25.
Social Media - The Good

26.
Social Media - The Bad

27.
Social Media - The Unexpected

28.
Key quotes retweeted:
“Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum.”
“Want to improve quality of life. Love and
empathy trumps technology.”
Social Media – What to do?

29.
Mutual Benefit Society
Social Media can inform the
Content Strategy on what is
and is not working
Social Media works best
with good Content Strategy

30.
Remember – social media is fun!

31.
Thank you!
Suna Gurol
Digital Program Manager, Microsoft in Health
suna@sunagurol.com
@SunaG
Digital, web and social media strategist
Master in Communication in Digital Media University of
Washington

32.
Resources
Demographics of Social Media channels: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/08/19/the-demographics-of-
social-media-users/
Social Media Examiner: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/ - social media tips and news
SmartBrief for Social Media: http://smartblogs.com/social-media/ - latest info on social
HubSpot: http://www.hubspot.com/free-marketing-resources - white papers and tools
Hootsuite: http://www.hootsuite.com – tools, but also good email newsletter
Impact Blog: http://www.impactbnd.com/
DigiDay: http://digiday.com/
Mashable: http://mashable.com/

33.
Credits
References:
Social media image sizes for 2015: http://blogs.constantcontact.com/social-media-image-sizes/
2015 Content Marketing Trends: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/2015_B2C_Research.pdf
Ideal length for social media and digital communications https://blog.bufferapp.com/the-ideal-length-of-everything-online-according-to-science
http://www.slideshare.net/SimoneMoriconi/context-content-social-media-strategies-2015
Linkedin Ads disappointing: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/03/17/8-reasons-i-hate-linkedin-ads
Where should I adversite? http://www.impactbnd.com/blog/which-social-media-network-should-my-business-advertise-on
Photo credits:
Thinking cartoon face, Todd at Vincere Coaching.
Bee pollinating flower, masaiwarrior via Flickr.
“Bravo” and “Goals” and “Nuts” via Shutterstock
Bert & Ernie, Sesame Workshop, 2013
Oreo – you can always dunk in the dark via Oreo Twitter.
Social media icons collage, Inc.com.
Baseline - tennis, Successfulworkplace.org
Visuals glasses – Creativecommons.org
Ron Burgandy – Favorite Meme’s of 2015
Dialogue – creativecommons.org
Measuring tape – creative commons.org
Handshake, Trivia Mania
Social media screen grabs: Project Violet Valentine’s Facebook campaign 2013, Fred Hutch Facebook posts from 2012, Neil Jordon, “Empowered Health – Thoughts from Around the Globe on What is Needed to Speed the Local
Health Transformation” Improving Healthcare International Convention, Nov. 17, 2015
Meme’s – Favorite memes of 2015, I Can Haz Cheezburger, and Hillary Clinton and Mark Zuckerberg meme, Texts from Hillary http://textsfromhillaryclinton.tumblr.com/