“Before You Press Publish” Checklist
Before diving into the checklist, let's go over a "Formula to Writing for Social Media"
Step 1 – Establish the post’s purpose. Do you intend on this post being informative or educational, inspiring, engagement through target audience similarities, promotional, trend recreation … etc. The importance of this step is to have a clear intent to the post.
Step 2 – Find an engaging way to connect the caption and visuals to the target audience. This can be created by “finish the sentence” posts, quotes, data, or stats that are impactful or even, at times, controversial verbiage.
Step 3 – Stick to the brand’s voice and tone. Ensure the words you are using reflect the brand and brand mission.
Step 4 – Use emojis and hashtags, when appropriate. Having brand-specific hashtags can greatly benefit the reach of a brand on Instagram. Also, correctly include links when necessary.
Step 5 – Pick a visual: photo, stock image, video, gif, or graphic that directly connects to the verbal message you are sharing
Step 6 – Once the content has been posted, engage, mention, and track the post.
To help ensure your post is "safe" to publish, let's go over this checklist with some explanation.
Does the post fulfill the intended purpose? Whether this be educational, informative, entertaining, etc.
Is the voice and tone correct for the brand? Refer back to your social media brand style guide to help answer this question.
Is the caption too long? Remember on Instagram, they must click “see more” to see the full caption after two lines of content and on Twitter you have a character limit of 280.
Does the link work and is it placed correctly for the platform? Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can have hyperlinks in captions. Other platforms you must direct to ”the link your bio” to follow through the action. You can have multiple links in a business’s bio by using an awesome tool like Linktr.ee.
Will the post fulfill a want or need of the brand’s target audience? Depending on the brand, your products or services may fill a specific want or need you need to support.
Checked grammar and spelling? Highly recommend downloading Grammarly to help you check grammar and spelling in content calendars.
Has similar content been posted recently? A good rule of thumb is to not post the same type of content within one week unless it connects to a bigger campaign or push at the moment.
Are the right keywords and hashtags included to maximize exposure? Use customized hashtags on platforms like Instagram to target your intended audience. Use trending hashtags on platforms like TikTok to increase your audience.
Is active language used? Posts should not be written in passive language and should include a call-to-action for social users to understand what they should do next with the content.
Does the post make the most of visual content for the platform? Each platform has different visual sizing and visuals are of higher important/more successful on social platforms like Instagram and TikTok compared to Twitter or Facebook.
How else can this post be utilized to engage and reach more of the brand’s audience? What are the next steps? On Instagram, should we tag specific accounts in the visual content or comment section or reshare through a creative Instagram Story to lead them to the new post?
