Scotty Graham would not call himself a social marketing guru by any stretch. At Toronto-based visual communications company Italic, he kind of slid into the role as the lead of social media marketing. When Italic's owners decided to rebrand and reposition the company, they asked if anyone was interested in taking on social media marketing. Scotty, then an operations manager at the company, raised his hand.

As a company that embraces digital technology and continually seeks new ways to help customers, Italic has important and interesting messages to share with its clients and prospects online. To that end, Scotty signed up for a crash course on social media management. It provided him with a great framework to approach the task systematically, he says.

Over the next year and a half, Scotty blended what he had learned in class with some hard-won lessons he had discovered through trial-and-error. Instead of working with a social media marketing agency, he essentially built his own blueprint for Italic's social media approach. That approach began with the belief that if Italic was truly going to understand how to engage deeply with its audience, the company needed to be front-and-center in conversations with its audience, wherever and whenever those people engaged.

Today, Italic uses multiple social media platforms to create dialogue with clients and prospects, share company news and photos, and position itself as an innovative, purposeful communication solutions provider. And Scotty, now a sales executive at Italic, keeps helping the company progress with social media: After building Italic's organic social media engine, he brought in a consultant to add a paid social media component to the mix. Scotty says the consultant helped the company optimize spending and increase the reach of its messaging.

Scotty's Advice for Print Colleagues

We asked Scotty to share some of his best practices for social media marketing. They're broken down here in his voice, organized by the categories WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN and HOW:

WHO (your customers are)

DO know who your customers are so you can determine where they're at on social media. You can do this through your own internal data and surveys, and by creating defined customer personas. Maybe you did this at some point during a branding exercise? If so, it's time to dust it off and update it.

DO investigate your customers before building a brand identity that is attractive to them.DO group your activity on social media into three strategy categories: (1) brand awareness — showing off, making it easy for people to know what you do as soon as they see your content; (2) thought leadership — sharing knowledge and inspiring customers, and proving your company is a leader in your category; and (3) direct call-to-action sales.

WHAT (to do before you spend money)

DO identify and organize company pages for whichever "rented" social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, etc.) include your audience. Also, structure your own marketing platforms and processes (website, mailing lists, etc.) because those will be what you drive people toward.

DO have a consistent content schedule, in the same way a magazine publisher needs to plan regular content and themes for each issue. If you need help, use later.com, planoly.com, or other scheduling platforms with free options to start.

DO focus on what's free. That includes ensuring basic website search engine optimization and use of metadata, connecting on social media with your current and prospective clients, building social media schedules and setting up your Google Business listing. Get yourself listed on any directory you can because the more hyperlinks pointing to you, the more valuable you look to algorithms. Use online tools to study your competition and see what keywords they are using (and paying for).

WHERE (to connect with your audience appropriately)

DO engage your buyer where they are at. Understand who your buyer is, why they’re buying and where they're located, all of which can influence their purchasing decision and pain points your company can solve. 

DON'T neglect writing photo captions. These are immediately seen by most online viewers, and good captions speak to the buyer. We keep our photo captions inspirational, as that is the voice of our brand.

DO use hashtags thoughtfully. Research them before you use them. They should align with your target persona We use analytics in Later.com to help us study which hashtags work best.

DON'T post off-brand content.

DON'T forget to tailor your message and images to the copy, graphics and link requirements of each social media platform.

WHEN (to spend your money)

DON'T get hung up on numbers. You're ultimate goal is to build an audience of loyal fans and quality leads, so think quality over quantity. If your social media marketing work lands you 800 good leads at 800 companies, that level of exposure is much better than having your post seen by 12,000 people who don’t need or care about your product or industry.

DO spend money on your own assets. That includes photography, web development, brand identity and a website SEO audit. Position your assets as your foundation and funnel, then feed that with your rented platforms. If you're going to spend money, make sure it points traffic to your owned platforms (for example, spending money to design a landing page and downloadable case study that social media followers will be pointed toward).

HOW (to spend your money)

DO consider these questions first: What is your overall strategy? Where are you sending people who are interesting in learning more about you?

DO realize that you can tweak the message and targeting until you gain traction, before spending too quickly or increasing your budget. Even $15 a week will start giving you data to learn from.

DO hire a freelancer/consultant to get you started on paid ads. It is a lot of setup, but you can target by geography or by demographic.

DON’T dump a paid ad lead on your main page. Use a landing page (featuring a case study, a blog post, a gallery, etc.) to keep their attention. Landing pages are especially important if you are buying paid ads.

We hope this advice from a fellow Dscooper helps you improve your company's social media strategy!