Guide
Best practices for digital communication
Produced in 2022
For young content creators on social media
In brief
Born of a will to offer young people a key role and increasing freedom of expression in the media of the Arab world, primarily through social media, the D-JIL project has the overall aim of granting young people better access to information, strengthening their media culture and increasing their participation in public debate and their civic engagement.
With this in mind, we have spent many years supporting and funding a dozen project owners all working towards a common goal of contributing to the active citizenship and autonomy of young people in nine countries of the Arab world, using the online media as the primary conduit.
Introduction
Born from the desire to offer young people a prominent place and ever-increasing freedom of expression in the media of the Arab world, particularly through social networks, the D-JIL project aims overall to give young people better access to information, to strengthen their media literacy and to increase their participation in public debate as well as their civic engagement.
Implemented by a consortium of partners whose members are CFI, the Samir Kassir Foundation (Lebanon), IREX Europe (France), FMAS (Morocco) and Leaders of Tomorrow (Jordan), and co-financed by the European Union, the D-JIL project is aimed at stakeholders developing digital information content that interests young people and who wish to benefit from support to strengthen their activity, enrich their content and launch new technical tools.
Which social media platforms should you prioritize? How should you structure your communications and strengthen your presence? What strategies, content, formats, and tools should you prioritize to continually improve your performance? This document provides the most comprehensive answers to your questions.
Situational analysis
Communicating on social media is now an indispensable and effectively proven practice.
Whether the aim is to highlight your entity or to create a space to express yourself and share the activities and projects you are undertaking each day, developing a community around your vision is the first step towards a successful online strategy. However, simply creating a Facebook, Instagram or Twitter account is not enough to succeed.
Indeed, building a discussion around all your activities requires time, resources and staff, as well as continuous monitoring to ensure constant, effective and well-targeted communication.
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Recommendation
You need to be in constant contact with Internet users to ensure you are part of their day-to-day routine. If you don’t, you could quickly be forgotten and your presence may never be seen due to a lack of content or a long period of inactivity.
1. What strategy should I adopt on social media?
To get straight to the heart of the matter, you should be aware that without a real strategy, it will be difficult for you to gain the spotlight on social media. This first section will therefore provide you with the basic rules to follow on social media, which, in our opinion, will enable you to realise your ambitions and achieve the results you want.
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Recommendation
To help you develop an optimum social media strategy, simply apply the POST (People + Objectives + Strategy + Technology) method :
- Determining target audience and human resources
- Setting clear objectives
- Developing strategies to implement
- Choosing the best technology
2. How do I effectively manage my community on social media?
Once you have acquired your community, and although it is continually developing, it is essential to implement an optimum community management strategy in order to both maintain it and attract new followers.
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Recommendation
The essential 4Cs for good community management:
- Content : creating value with quality posts
- Context : fostering interactions and optimising relationship quality
- Connectivity : being close to your target audience
- Continuity : focusing on lasting relationships while innovating
3. Facebook : how to use it
Founded in 2004, Facebook is an online social network that is part of the Meta Platforms Inc. Group. It allows users and brands to publish content, interact with other users, join groups of subject-based communities in which users discuss a range of varied topics or even to follow pages, which are in effect spaces where brands, organisations and influencers can assert their presence and position.
It is by far the most versatile social network, claiming no fewer than 2.9 billion active users in 2021, which makes it the most visited and most powerful social network in the world.
It is also the third-most downloaded app on smartphones worldwide. This all means that, more than any other social network, using Facebook in your communications is key to asserting your presence on social media.
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4. Instagram : how to use it
Launched in 2010, Instagram is the ultimate social network for sharing experiences among users, good plans, inspiring photos, videos and all sorts of other highly attractive content. It allows you to build a community of your own and to become a member of the users’ communities. You can choose to share content (photos, videos, carousels, reels, etc.) with a restricted community (private account) or all users (public account).
Instagram sits in fourth place in terms of the global number of active users across all social platforms, totalling almost 1.5 billion active users. In Q4 2021, Instagram became the most downloaded app in the world, knocking TikTok off the top spot.
It underwent a surge in popularity after being purchased by Facebook and around 60% of its monthly users now spend several hours a day using the platform.
With a primarily young, female usership (on average under 34, 65% female), this social network represents a golden opportunity for any entity wishing to develop a community to establish its image and gain visibility.
Click here for the full article : best practices for digital communication - Instagram : how to use it
5. Twitter : how to use it
Launched in 2006, Twitter is one of the world’s most used social networks. With over 217 million monetisable daily active users, a figure released in February 2022, Twitter is the fourth ranked social network or messaging service allowing access to information.
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6. LinkedIn : how to use it
Launched in 2003, LinkedIn is the world’s first professional social network It allows its members to connect with each other, exchange information and communicate. As an international network par excellence, it has been experiencing increasing growth and now has over 810 million members in 200 countries worldwide. 43% of LinkedIn members are female and 53% male. Almost 80% of its members are under 35.
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7. YouTube : how to use it
Launched in 2005, YouTube is a giant of entertainment that needs no introduction. The online video platform is the world’s leader in audio-visual content. Indeed, videos have become the most popular format on social media, appealing to Internet users and enabling their creators to achieve considerable engagement rates. YouTube has broken all the audience records with over 2 billion monthly active users.
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8. Social media management tools
Today, there is a multitude of social media management tools, available free of charge or on a freemium basis, which allow you to manage your social networks centrally, thereby saving you a considerable amount of time and providing key information on the development of your online strategy.
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Recommendation
These tools are truly game changing for your social media strategy! If you want your social media campaigns to grow, you simply cannot do this without significant marketing tools in your arsenal.
9. Monetisation
To take things further and be even more productive, you can also monetise your social media profiles, which will enable you, as a content creator, to benefit from a regular source of income. Read on to discover the techniques to apply to each of your social network profiles for optimum profitability.
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Conclusion
As real tools providing a gateway to the world, social media offers no end of benefits. Free and easy to use, these networks enable you to improve your search engine rankings, create a buzz to increase awareness and facilitate contact with your communities and potential leads. They offer spaces for exchanges and discussions, and are powerful tools for raising awareness of a specific cause or solidarity action among a large number of individuals.
In summary, social media allows you to exist and showcase your day-to-day activities. This guide has been designed to recommend practices to be adopted on each social network that you choose to use. To summarise the main points, you must take the time to browse the social networks in order to absorb their culture. Bear in mind that not everyone behaves in the same way and that you must target your audience in order to maximise the results of your campaigns. What’s more, consider building your strategy step by step, as this will form the backbone of everything you want to achieve.
Bring your community together around issues in which they are involved and be serious about hosting your community so that you are always accessible and close and maintain your sympathetic capital in the eyes of your (potential) followers. Don’t be scared to use advertising campaigns, you can always improve, especially if you only have a small budget at the outset. Finally, always measure the performance of your online strategy so that you can adapt it continually and fine-tune your presence in the long term.
Method
Guide created by Consultor
Under the direction of the Alternatives Forum in Morocco (FMAS)