The Only Social Media Strategy You Need​

Today’s guest started his Marketing career in high school. Yes, high school.

Initially working as a nightclub promoter, Anthony Yepez is now the Associate Director of Social Media for Orangetheory Fitness.

With 13+ years of experience in community building and campaign development, Anthony is a social media marketing LEGEND.

Lucky for us, he dropped ALL his social media marketing gems on The Marketing Millennials Podcast.

Here’s what he had to say in his own liiiightly edited words.

1. Why social media is undervalued:

Everyone has access to social media. I bet you have posted something within the last week, Snapchat story, BeReal, or an IG photo dump (guilty of that LOL).

It’s incredibly accessible, so it holds a different value in the eyes of someone that doesn’t fully understand it as a profession. 

Social’s main knock against it is, the ease with which you can see your return on investment in other areas of marketing compared to social. 

Of course you have your UTMs and affiliate codes, but it takes a lot of tech and tracking from the website and social side to be effective.

Social is also very new in relation to other methods of Marketing.

There are 2 ways to solve social media being overlooked.

1) It’s the responsibility of social media professionals to educate their teams and leadership all the way up to the CEO, to break down how valuable social media is.

Social is the top of funnel awareness.

It creates opportunities for people to be aware of who you are. Then social’s job is to supplement the other channels of marketing, so that when that paid ad goes out, they see your brand and there’s a connection there.

They already have been exposed to your social media and now there’s a better chance for the person to click on the ad. 

2) There has to be openness on the leadership side.

A lot of social media managers get hit with a, “Hey my nephew said we should be on TikTok.” 

In that instance, social media is being widely overlooked (THIS).

You need to clarify to leadership teams that they hired you, a professional, and let that professional do their job.

Leadership needs to trust them as being the expert in that field and let them lead the way. 

2. Fitting social into the puzzle:

Before you set your strategy, sit down with each marketing lead, channel lead, and the head of marketing to fully align on the goals of the content strategy and KPIs.

The social lead and team should be fully immersed in the marketing plan for the company before the social strategy is put into action. 

From there, it’s about keeping all the channel leads and the head of marketing on the same page about what the total marketing strategy is (#alignmentbaby).

Establish a clear vision of what the content buckets are, so you’re working off the same canvas.

Then look at the different social channels that your brand is active on and see what the user mindset is on each social channel.

What does content look like on these channels? 

What resonates with your audience and what from your content strategy matches each channel? 

Establish how you can show up in an engaging way. There’s no one size fits all across social (1,000x yes!!).

Keep close to that overall marketing strategy, establish your social strategy in tandem, and have a clear plan for each social channel on how you’re going to satisfy those different content lanes. 

This is so there will be no misconceptions.

3. How to decide what channels to be on:

It all starts with understanding your audience. 

This goes back to the marketing strategy and identifying your target audience.

Where are they most active on social? 

Then it’s based on your resources.

If you’re a team of one (WE LOVE YOU), that’s going to be a big factor. You could probably be on two or three channels at most and that might be a stretch.

Then it comes down to your purpose.

What are you trying to achieve out of each channel that you’re on? If that is not easily answered by you or anyone in the marketing department, more chances than not, you don’t need to be on that channel. 

Just because a new feature came out on TikTok doesn’t mean you NEED to be on TikTok. 

Do you have the resources? Do you have the audience? Do you truly know what your purpose is?

Those 3 are the questions you have to ask yourself before deciding what channels you’re going to be on as a brand. 

4. Content creators vs. Social Media Managers:

Both are super important.

The social media manager is playing multiple roles. They’re the strategy, the community engager, the copywriter, and the publisher. 

They represent the brand from an internal perspective, and also are connected to the community as a representative of the brand.

(SMMs don’t get enough respect, there I said it ‍♂️.)

Whereas the content creator is a piece of the puzzle that works very closely with the social media manager.

Content creators know their community best. They are the one bringing the social media manager’s brainstorming sessions to life.

Both are essential to success for your brand on social. Don’t just hire a team of content creators and have no social team. 

You’re not going to find long-term success without having the experts within that medium being part of the creative process. 

Creating content that resonates with their audience is a content creator’s specialty.

Whereas, the social media manager is good at putting the pieces of the puzzle together and connecting it with the broader marketing strategy. 

5. Companies misunderstand this:

One thing that is glaring that companies don’t understand about social is that it’s not easy. 

It’s not as simple as you might think it is (retweet).

From a personal perspective, it’s easy. You can post whatever you want, it’s your page, profile, and life. 

When you’re dealing with a brand or a company, you have a lot of different things that go through your mind as a social media professional.

Whether it’s the type of language, color, the branding, the person that’s in the image, how they’re dressed, or how they’re acting. There’s a laundry list of things that you have to consider.

So when you get that simple request of, “Can you just put this up?” from other team members they don’t understand all that goes into one post. 

It’s because of the misconception that anything can go on social.

(Just because you see me posting about breakfast tacos doesn’t mean you should too – LOL.)

Social media is a highly strategic marketing channel. It’s not a place where things go up when you need extra eyeballs.

There needs to be a plan, collaboration, and alignment before something goes out.