Summary Content Marketing’s Social Media Growth Guide
An Introduction to the SCM Social Media Growth Guide
Social media has evolved into a cornerstone of modern marketing, but growing your presence in a space where everyone is competing for attention isn’t easy. The good news? You don’t have to navigate it alone. We developed this Social Media Growth Guide to walk you through every step, strategy, and tactic you need to strengthen your online presence and achieve impactful results.
At Summary Content Marketing, we’ve been helping brands grow and glow up since 2013. Our approach blends smart strategy, authentic storytelling, and bold creativity to elevate businesses to their highest potential. With over two decades of combined experience, our team has witnessed the rise of social media and learned to navigate, adapt, and thrive in an ever-evolving digital landscape.
We’ve tested countless methods, refined what works, and cut out what doesn’t. This guide is everything we’ve learned over the years, designed to transform how you approach social media for your brand, business, or personal marketing, guaranteeing clearer strategies, smarter content, more online clout, and stronger growth.
Who Is This For?
This guide is designed for entrepreneurs, business owners, or marketing teams who are ready to take social media seriously. We understand the struggle, juggling countless responsibilities, squeezing in the occasional post, and thinking, “That will do.” But it doesn’t have to be that way. Social media can be a powerful tool for transforming your business when used with intention.
We’ve created the ultimate social media guide to simplify the strategy and content process, streamline your workflow, and make managing social media easier and more effective for you and your team.
Why Your Business or Brand Needs Social Media?
You might be wondering why social media is such a crucial part of your business strategy. According to Statista, 61.4% of the world’s population, that’s 4.95 billion people, are using social media. Additionally, four in ten social media users use the platforms to find new products and brands. While this stat may not be news to you, it’s a reminder that you and your brand need to be present where your audience spends their time.
But the real power of social media goes far beyond the numbers. It opens doors to opportunities traditional marketing simply can’t match. It allows you to speak directly with your audience, whether it is publishing content, receiving instant feedback, or replying directly to your customers; you’re building a digital community that can only exist online.
It will expand your brand visibility far beyond your typical customers, enabling you to reach entirely new audiences, increase brand awareness, and introduce your business to people who may never have discovered you otherwise. The list could go on, but social media is one of the most cost-effective marketing tools available. You can build a brand, create engagement, generate leads, and convert customers without the high costs of traditional advertising, all from your laptop screen!
Are you ready to learn more? Book your Free 30-minute Intro consultation with us today!
Chapter One: Laying the Foundations for a Successful Social Media Strategy
You wouldn’t build a house without a solid foundation, so why build a social media strategy without one? Strong foundations create structure, stability, and long-term success for your business. They give you a clear framework for decision-making, guiding your direction, purpose, and overall strategy. So, what foundations should you be laying for social media?
Foundation One: Goals
Before you even open your social media apps, you need to know what you’re aiming for. Posting without a purpose is like shouting into a void; no one will hear you, and even fewer will see you. Clear goals give your content direction, intention, and impact.
Key Question to Ask Yourself: How does social media fit into your overall business and marketing strategy?
Is your goal to build brand awareness, grow a community, or drive sales? Having a clear objective ensures every post serves a purpose and contributes to the results you want to achieve. When you know your goal, your content becomes intentional, focused, and far more effective.
Foundation Two: Audience
To truly connect with your audience, you first need to understand them. This means digging deeper into their mindset, learning their daily needs, habits, motivations, and behaviors. What kind of language resonates with them? What type of content are they consuming right now? Where do they spend their time and money? How old are they? What gender do they identify as?
Key Question to Ask Yourself: What social media platforms are your target audiences using?
Ensuring that you’re posting on the right platforms is essential for connecting with your audience. You don’t want to waste time and resources creating content for a platform where your audience isn’t active. Focus your efforts where your target audience actually spends their time to maximize engagement and results.
Once you’ve mapped out your audience, you can tailor your content directly to them. Not only will your messaging resonate more strongly, but it will also help you build a deeper, more meaningful relationship with your community.
Not sure how to determine which platform best suits your audience?
According to the Pew Research Center, here’s a rough breakdown by age.
YouTube - Spans multiple generations, predominantly ages 18 - 49
Facebook - Predominantly ages 30-49
Instagram - Predominantly ages 18 - 29
TikTok - Predominantly ages 18 - 29 (other resources show a large teen audience as well)
You can read the full article here. There are many other resources with statistics like this to help you choose the right channels.
Foundation Three: Content Strategy
Having a plan keeps you focused, and that’s exactly what a content strategy does. A content strategy is a roadmap that outlines how your content will be created, delivered, and managed to achieve the goals you set earlier. It ensures every post, story, or reel has a clear purpose and works to grow your brand, community, or sales. This is the blueprint that will transform those random posts into a structured path that drives real growth.
Pro Point: Within your content strategy, be sure to include a content calendar. Whether it’s planned monthly, weekly, or seasonally, a content calendar outlines what you’ll post and where. This takes the guesswork out of your day-to-day posting, so you’re never left scrambling for ideas at the last minute.
Foundation Four: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Metrics
To measure the success of your social media efforts, setting clear KPIs and metrics allows you to track them in real time. KPIs serve as benchmarks to show whether your strategy is working, such as engagement rates, reach, website clicks, or conversions. For example, it might be ‘increase engagement by 20% in three months.’
By consistently tracking these metrics, you can identify what’s performing well and spot areas for improvement, enabling you to make data-driven decisions to optimize your content and grow your online presence.
Pro Tip: Check monthly, but measure and adjust quarterly.
The Summary Content Glow Up
There you have it. The essential foundations for conquering the world of social media. You might be thinking, “I don’t know how to make a content calendar” or “How do I find out what platforms my audience uses?”
You don’t have to navigate it alone. At Summary Content Marketing, we specialize in creating custom strategies and content calendars, and in offering full-service social media and ad management. You tell us your goals, and we’ll make them happen, guiding you every step of the way.
Chapter Two: Brand Identity and Voice
Your brand identity is the heart and soul of your social media presence. It is your overall look, feel, and values, communicated through the language and tone you choose. Before you begin worrying about content formats, hashtags, or posting schedules, you need a strong sense of who you are and how to communicate that to the world.
Clarifying Your Brand Identity
A clear brand identity starts with understanding the fundamentals of your brand.
Mission: What are you here to do? What purpose do you serve?
Values: What principles guide your decisions, behaviour, and communication?
Positioning: What makes you different from everyone else? Why should some choose you over a competitor?
These three core elements shape your tone, messaging, visuals, and content strategy. When you are clear on who you are, so is your audience.
Pro Tip: Repetition is powerful. Social media users like to know what to expect from you. This helps with recognition, retention, and trust.
Developing a Brand Voice
Your brand is the personality behind your words. It’s how you sound when you communicate online. It could be friendly and approachable, or bold and confident, or playful and energetic. The key is choosing a voice that aligns with your brand identity.
But your brand should also be shaped by the people you’re talking to. What tone does your audience respond to best? What language do they use themselves? You want to create a voice that resonates with your audience, while reflecting who you are.
Translating Identity into Social Media
Now that you have established who you are, it’s time to bring your brand identity to life across your social media. Your social media should feel like an extension of your brand, not a separate version.
Tone
Your tone is more than just the words you choose. It’s the feeling that those words create. Your content may differ across platforms, but your tone should remain consistent. Your tone will help your audience feel they know your brand before they even see your logo.
Messaging
Your messaging is the core foundation of your brand communication. Your messaging conveys your beliefs, values, and mission, repeated consistently throughout your content. Your audience shouldn’t have to guess what you do or stand for. Strong, clear, repeated messaging builds credibility and makes your brand unforgettable.
Visuals
Your visual identity is what stops people from scrolling. It is the fastest way for people to recognize your brand. It can be as simple as the colors and typography you choose, or the layouts, templates, or graphics you use. When your visuals are consistent, your content becomes recognizable even without your logo.
Storytelling
Storytelling is the emotional thread that connects your brand to your audience. It is about reinforcing themes that reflect your brand identity. Good storytelling makes your brand human, giving your audience something to feel and connect with. Adding behind-the-scenes, founder, or customer success stories are all ways to achieve this.
When these four elements work together, your social media presence becomes a seamless extension of your brand. Whether someone discovers you on TikTok, LinkedIn, or Instagram, they should experience the same personality, values, and identity.
Brand Guidelines
Brand guidelines act as a foundation for you and your team. Whether you have one person or a whole team working on social content, guidelines ensure that everything stays consistent and reflects your brand in everything you create.
It should include:
Logo
Color palette
Typography
Imagery style
Messaging framework
This is your rulebook. It defines your brand’s identity, helping you to build a strong brand recognition and a cohesive, professional image.
The Summary Content Glow Up
Not sure where to start? Don’t worry, our team at Summary can help you build a complete brand identity, whether you’re starting from scratch or refreshing your existing brand. We are here to turn your ideas into a compelling, recognizable brand that walks, talks, and resonates across every touchpoint. We’ll create a cohesive, professional identity you can confidently bring to social media and beyond.
Your brand deserves better than a Canva logo and a dream. Let’s give it roots and wings!
Chapter Three: Organic Social Media Secrets
Organic social media refers to the free, unpaid content you share on your platforms, such as posts, photos, videos, or stories, without using any paid advertising.
For businesses, organic social media is all about educating your audience, boosting visibility and credibility, and encouraging genuine engagement. It’s a long-term strategy that often takes months to show significant results. But once it gains momentum, the payoff is worth the wait. Gaining you a loyal audience that stays connected to your brand for years.
Social Content Types
Social media content includes a variety of different formats, each with a distinct purpose and platform. Here are the basics:
Short-Form Video (Reels, Shorts, TikToks)
These videos are perfect for boosting reach and increasing discoverability. Most social media algorithms prioritise this type of content, making it highly effective for attracting new audiences, tapping into trends, and delivering engaging information quickly.
Long-form Videos (YouTube, Instagram Lives)
Long-form videos are ideal for building a deeper, more meaningful connection with your audience. Whether it’s a detailed tutorial demonstrating your latest service or a behind-the-scenes look at your process, longer content allows you to share more value and personality. This format is highly effective for establishing expertise, showcasing authority, and nurturing a loyal, engaged audience.
Images & Infographics
Sharing visually appealing images, infographics, or graphics with concise text makes your content easy to consume and quick to capture attention in a crowded feed. These formats help your message stand out and communicate value at a glance.
Text-Based Posts (Tweets, LinkedIn posts, Status updates)
These posts are excellent for sparking conversations, sharing updates, and communicating more complex ideas. Incorporating SEO keywords can also make your content more discoverable, helping your audience find it more easily.
Stories (Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat)
Stories are only visible for 24 hours after posting, making them perfect for casual, real-time updates and behind-the-scenes glimpses. They help keep your brand visible daily without overcrowding your main feed. Stories also encourage immediate, direct engagement through features like polls, questions, and reactions, enabling you to connect with your audience in a more interactive and personal way.
The Essentials of Engagement
Engagement is the key to unlocking organic social media. Likes, comments, shares, saves, and replies signal to the algorithm that your content is valuable, increasing the likelihood that it will be shown to more people.
Beyond the algorithm, engagement builds a relationship with your audience. When you interact with your community, whether it be through replying to comments, joining conversations, or taking on board feedback, you create trust, loyalty, and a sense of community.
Strong engagement does more than just boost your visibility. It’s a way to turn followers into fans, and fans into long-term customers. These loyal supporters become your biggest advocates, sharing your content, talking about your brand, and organically spreading the word without you having to lift a finger.
The Magic of Metrics
Metrics will be your guiding light as you post organic content. They are crucial for understanding what is working, what isn’t, measuring progress, and helping you make informed decisions driven by data.
But not all metrics carry the same weight. It is essential to understand the difference between vanity and action metrics, so you can measure what truly matters.
Vanity metrics, such as page likes, follower count, or profile views, look impressive at first glance. Still, they don’t always show whether your audience is actually engaging with you or taking action.
Action metrics, on the other hand, reveal what your audience is doing with your content. These include views, clicks, reach, shares, saves, and purchases. These metrics reflect real engagement and behavior, demonstrating that your content is driving traffic, generating interest, and ultimately leading to conversions, outreach, or sales.
The Scheme of Scheduling
Posting organic content at the right times can help you maximize reach and engagement by aligning your posts with when your audience is most active. Social media algorithms often prioritize content that receives early, quick engagement, so timing truly matters.
But you likely don’t have time to sit around waiting for the “perfect moment” to hit publish. That’s where scheduling tools come in, helping you plan ahead and reduce the risk of human error.
Later is one of many platforms that allow businesses and agencies to manage their social presence across multiple networks. With Later, you can schedule multiple posts across different platforms, monitor engagement, and streamline your entire social media workflow. There are many management platforms available, so play around and find out what works best for you!
The Summary Content Glow Up
Put our expertise to work for you. With over a decade of experience in social media, we know exactly what your business needs, which content resonates, how often to post, and which platforms will deliver the best results. Stop stressing over scheduling, posting, and engagement. Let us take the reins so you can focus on running your business while we grow your social presence and get results that matter.
Chapter Four: Paid Social Media Rulebook
Paid social media is great for those moments when you want to grow in a targeted, purposeful way and deliver results that boost your organic strategy. Whether you are looking to increase awareness, drive traffic, generate leads, or increase sales, ads help you get there with more predictability. However, before you jump in, make sure you’re clear on what you want to achieve, your budget, and when it makes the most sense to run your campaigns.
Platforms to Consider
Different platforms have different strengths, so choosing the right ones depends on who you’re trying to reach. Your choice should align with your target audience and campaign objectives.
Pros: Potential to reach a massive audience, quick results, and budget flexibility
Cons: High competition and reduced organic reach.
Instagram
Pros: High engagement, hyper-targeting, and cost-effectiveness
Cons: High competition and low-quality content won’t perform.
TikTok
Pros: A global audience, targeted audiences, and in-app shopping experiences
Cons: Requires niche content and limited demographics to target.
Digital Marketing Funnel 101
The digital marketing funnel is a simple way to understand how people move from first discovering your brand to eventually becoming customers.
The Top of the Funnel
Your goal is to build awareness, reach new audiences, and spark interest. This could be through blog posts, social media, videos, ads, and SEO.
Key Consideration: Your goal at the top of the funnel for social media ads is not to enable a purchase, call, or conversion. It is simply to build awareness and engagement with your core audience or customers, so that you can retarget them later.
The Middle of the Funnel
In this stage, you are nurturing those curious users with valuable content, retargeting, and education that build trust. This could look like in-depth guides, webinars, product comparisons, and marketing emails to heighten their exposure to your brand and continue to work your core audiences down the sales funnel.
Key Consideration: These social media ads should prompt an action, such as providing an email address or downloading a guidebook. But the action should be small and easy to execute. Think one to two steps at most.
The Bottom of the Funnel
This is where the action happens. Prospects drive the final purchase, book a call, or sign up. This is done through demos, free trials, testimonials, discounts, and abandoned cart emails.
Key Consideration: This is where you close the deal, get your warm and engaged audience to make the purchase, the call, or take the final action. These ads need to be clean, clear, and build a sense of urgency.
By understanding how each stage works and creating content that supports the entire journey, you’ll build a smoother path for your audience and make your marketing efforts far more effective. A strong funnel doesn’t just attract customers, it keeps them coming back!
Types of Paid Social Media Campaigns
Paid social campaigns come in several formats, and each one serves a different goal. Awareness campaigns are all about getting your brand in front of as many relevant people as possible. You’ll want to use this when you’re launching something new, entering a new market, or just trying to boost visibility. A strong paid social strategy doesn’t rely on just one type of campaign. It uses a combination to build awareness, collect leads, and drive sales.
Next, traffic and engagement campaigns help warm up your audience by encouraging them to take small but meaningful actions. This could include clicking through to your website, watching your videos, saving your posts, or engaging with your content.
Lead generation campaigns are all about data. It’s for when you want to collect email addresses, sign-ups, demo requests, all things that help build up your audience off-platform. Lead ads make this process quick and seamless by allowing users to submit their information without leaving the app, which typically boosts conversions and lowers costs.
Finally, conversion and purchase campaigns are for targeting people who are most likely to buy. These campaigns optimise for bottom-of-funnel actions such as add-to-cart, purchase, or sign-up completions. This is where strong retargeting, warm audiences, and clear calls to action make the biggest difference.
Audience Targeting
Targeting is where paid social shines. Interest targeting helps you to find people who naturally align with your niche. You can deliver ads to users based on their hobbies, passions, activities, and engagements.
Pro Tip: Don’t overlook the power of excluding audiences to deliver a true prospecting audience experience for top-of-funnel ads
Lookalike ads are used to find new potential customers who share similar traits, behaviours, and interests, expanding your reach beyond your current audience.
Finally, custom audiences, such as website visitors, email subscribers, and past buyers, are for retargeting and warming up potential customers.
Budgeting for Social Media Ads
Pro Tip: An aligned partnership between your organic strategy and your paid strategy can net efficient ads and build a healthy sales funnel.
Your budget doesn’t have to be huge; it just needs to align with your goals. Try starting small, gathering data, seeing what works, and scaling it up. Use bidding strategies to determine how much to pay for ad placements to meet campaign goals, balancing cost with desired outcomes such as clicks, conversions, or brand awareness. Think of your budget as something you shape and adjust as you learn, not a fixed number you set once.
Designing for Ads
Your ad creative is often the deciding factor between someone scrolling past or stopping to take action. People don’t come to social media to read ads. They come for an escape, to be entertained, inspired, or informed. Strong videos, scroll-stopping visuals, and clear messaging make a world of difference when trying to blend in.
Focus on visuals that grab attention and copy that is short, human, and benefit-led. Your audience should be able to understand what you’re offering and why it matters almost instantly. Try to avoid overly salesy language and generic stock photos. You want to create organic content, not traditional ads.
Pro Tip: If something performs well organically, that’s a sign your audience already loves it. Turning those posts into ads often lowers your costs and boosts performance because the content has already been validated!
Testing, Optimization, and Metrics
Paid social works best when you treat it like an ongoing experiment. Test different audiences. Test visuals, formats, and copy to see what is successful. Once you find what works, build on it. Small tweaks over time lead to bigger, more consistent results, and better results for your budget!
Keep an eye on the numbers. These metrics will tell you everything: what’s working, what isn’t, and where to adjust. When you measure the right metrics, you can confidently make decisions that drive real growth.
The Summary Content Glow Up
Running an ad campaign can feel like a full-time job on its own. But the good news is, it’s our job. At Summary, we can handle it all for you. From building data-backed strategies to creating high-performing ad creatives and fine-tuning campaigns for better results, we’ll spend smarter and reach the people who actually matter.
Chapter Five: Influencer and UGC Collaboration
User-generated content (UGC) and influencer content are powerful tools for businesses because they provide authentic, relatable posts and reels that build trust with your audience. When people see real customers enjoying your product, expertise, or service, they’re more likely to take action and make a purchase.
According to Sprout Social’s Q3 2025 Pulse Survey, 64% of consumers say they’re more likely to purchase when a brand partners with their favorite influencers. Additionally, Statista reports that over 86% of U.S. marketers partnered with influencers in 2025, underscoring the centrality of influencer marketing to modern strategies.
Choosing the Right Influencer
With a pool of 50 million influencers to pick from, choosing the right influencer will make or break your campaign. You have four leading influencer types to choose from:
Nano Influencers (2K - 10,000K followers)
Despite a small audience, these creators have a very close relationship with their followers, resulting in a high engagement rate. Their influencer is usually local or in a specific niche.
Micro Influencers (10,000K - 100K followers)
Micro-influencers aren’t household names, but they have significant influence in their niches. Their followers trust their opinion, making their recommendations highly credible.
Macro Influencers (100K - 1M followers)
These influencers often use social media as their full-time job, making collaborations much more expensive. However, their range is substantially bigger, reaching a more diverse and engaged audience.
Mega Influencers (1M+ followers)
They are the top of the top, with global reach, often being celebrities or widely recognized figures in mainstream media. Given their massive followings, their ability to drive brand awareness is unmatched, but engagement rates may not always be as high as those of smaller, niche influencers.
Pro tip: Don’t underestimate the power of Nano and Micro Influencers! They can be highly valuable due to their authenticity, high engagement rates, and cost-effectiveness!
How to Source, Vet, and Contract Creators
Before reaching out to influencers, you need a clear sense of who fits your brand. Look for creators who naturally complement your values, tone, and audience. Are their followers your demographic? Do they have good engagement? Look at their past brand partnerships. Would they genuinely enjoy or use your product or service? Have they had any negativity surrounding them lately?
Pro Tip: You can discover creators by searching relevant hashtags, reviewing your competitors' collaborators, or using influencer platforms like Upfluence, which let you filter by niche, audience size, location, engagement rate, and more to find the perfect match.
It’s always best practice to request a media kit (a digital resume or portfolio) from the chosen creator, or manually check their engagement rate to ensure you’re investing in someone who can genuinely deliver results.
Once you have found the perfect creator, reach out with clear expectations on deliverables, timelines, and compensation. This can be in the form of a contract or a request form, protecting you both if things go wrong in the future. A well-written contract should outline key project details, including deliverables, post dates, usage rights, payment terms, exclusivity, approval processes, and performance expectations.
Aside from a contract, proving a creative brief that outlines key messaging, example shots, deliverable formats, and any specific details you want included in the content serves as a roadmap to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Pro Tip: Just because a creator posts content doesn’t mean you automatically have permission to use it for ads, your website, or long-term marketing. Usage terms should be clearly defined in the contract, including duration, placements, and whether the creator must be credited.
Campaigns
When working with creators, you have two main campaigns, each offering unique benefits depending on your objectives, budget, or stage of growth.
User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) is the most accessible and cost-effective content, typically sourced from micro-creators. UGC focuses on relatable, real-life demonstrations of your product or service, such as tutorials, unboxings, or testimonials. This content feels natural and unpolished, which helps audiences trust it more.
UGC is created for your brand, rather than posted by the creator; it becomes a reusable asset you can repurpose across ads, your website, organic social, and email campaigns. It’s perfect for brands with a low budget, looking for versatile and authentic content.
Collaboration Posts
Collaboration posts are content published directly to their own audience, which immediately taps into their reach, influence, and community trust. This campaign is ideal for brands wanting high visibility, credibility, and awareness, especially when partnering with Marcocreators who have an established and large following. They are especially impactful for product launches or campaigns!
These posts tend to come with a higher cost, as you’re not only paying for the content, but also for the access to their audience and the additional exposure your brand receives. When planned strategically, collab posts can significantly boost reach, increase brand recognition, and drive interest at scale.
What Does Success Look Like
Success will look different for brands, depending on what goals they set. However, these outcomes are measured using key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect those goals. It may include brand awareness, conversions, click rate, and engagement.
You can also measure how successful the campaign is through deeper qualitative indicators, such as content quality, audience reaction, and alignment with brand values, helping you make informed decisions about where to reinvest and which creators to prioritise in the future.
Pro Tip: Create a centralised, organised system to manage every asset, tracking performance, and monitoring campaigns from start to finish. It could be in the form of a spreadsheet or a media bank, but a place where content, post dates, usage rights, and performance metrics are all kept in one place.
The Summary Content Glow Up
At Summary Content, we take the stress out of your influencer marketing. Our team handles everything from sourcing the right creators, organising seeding campaigns, managing gifted or paid partnerships, drafting contracts, collecting assets, and analysing performance. We believe in innovative creator partnerships, strategic outreach, and content that moves the needle, without feeling like an ad.
Chapter Six: Social Content Creation and Visuals
Visual content is fundamental for capturing attention in a fast-scrolling world. Eye-catching graphics, high-quality photos, and branded video content are powerful tools for communicating complex ideas and creating an emotional connection with your audience. Visuals are often the first impression your audience gets, so making them count is key to building recognition and trust. Remember, a picture paints a thousand words…
Balancing Brand Voice and Design
A successful social presence blends two elements: how you sound and how you look. Your brand voice (tone, language, personality) and your design style (colours, typography, layout) should complement each other to create a unified, authentic, and consistent experience. Everything you create should stem from your core mission, vision, and values.
When these elements align, your content becomes unmistakably yours. Even before viewers see your handle, they know your name. Whether you’re on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, or YouTube, consistency is crucial. It doesn’t mean posting identical content everywhere. It means adapting it for each platform while keeping your brand intact, strengthening your brand identity, and helping your audience feel connected to your message.
Your Tools for Creation
You don’t need a studio or fancy equipment to create high-quality content. There are countless tools available to make creation faster and easier, all from your laptop. These tools allow you to edit videos, create professional graphics, and repurpose user-generated content with ease, even without a design background.
Graphic Design Tools
These platforms make it easy to design everything from Instagram posts to banners, presentations, email headers, and infographics.
Canva: Perfect for beginners and professionals alike, Canva offers thousands of templates for all types of content. It’s incredibly user-friendly and ideal for quickly creating branded, polished graphics.
Adobe Express: A great tool for levelling up your designs with advanced features while keeping things simple. Adobe Express provides premium templates, AI-powered features, and seamless integration with the Adobe ecosystem.
Video Editing Tools
These tools help you create engaging Reels, TikToks, ads, and stories, crucial for substantial reach and audience retention.
CapCut: Perfect for short-form content like TikToks or Reels. It’s simple, fast, and packed with the latest trendy templates, effects, transitions, and auto-caption features.
Adobe Premiere: A professional-grade editing tool that gives you full creative control. It’s perfect for brands or creators who want high-quality, polished videos with fast, free, and focused editing.
Repurposing Content
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel with every post. Repurposing your existing content into new formats is one of the smartest ways to maximize your content. It is not re-releasing identical content, but think of it as recycling your content for a new audience on a different channel.
Pro tip: Avoid repurposing content simply because you can. Instead, identify the pieces that naturally lend themselves to a new format and will still deliver value.
Why don’t you try these:
Turn a blog into bite-sized graphics or a carousel
Break a podcast into short clips or quote posts
Transform long-form videos into reels or story snippets
Covert data into infographics
One piece of content can become 10+ posts when repurposed strategically, saving you time while boosting visibility.
Organizing Your Assets
A smooth content workflow starts with strong organization. When your content, visuals, and ideas are well structured, everything becomes easier. Good organization not only saves time but also ensures your content stays consistent, strategic, and on schedule.
Using a content calendar lets you map out what you’re posting, when you’ll post it, and which platforms you’ll be sharing it on. Whether you plan weekly, monthly, or quarterly, a content calendar ensures that you stay proactive rather than reactive.
Building a media bank, a central place where all your assets live, makes it faster and easier for you or your team to pull content when needed, avoiding repeated searches through old emails, downloads, or camera rolls. This includes brand imagery, templates, B-roll, UGC, or testimonials; it’s all there.
The Summary Content Glow Up
If all of these feel like a lot to manage, you’re not alone! Our team of expert designers and copywriters at Summary can help you create scroll-stopping visuals, strong messaging, and a consistent brand presence across every platform. Not only that, we are there to continually adjust and reinvent to keep them engaging and effective for you.
From templates to full content creation, we’re here to make social media stress-free for you.
Chapter Seven: Analytics
The true power of social media lies in the data it generates. These analytics offer you valuable insights into audience behaviour, campaign performance, and market trends, helping you to make informed decisions that drive growth.
What Metrics Matter?
Don’t get lost in the sea of numbers. What really matters is identifying the metrics that align with your goals. These insights show you what is working, what isn’t, and where there’s room for improvement.
Key Social Media Metrics:
Reach: The number of unique visitors who saw your content
Engagement: Measures how much your audience interacts with your content, such as likes, shares, and saves.
Impressions: The number of times your content is displayed, regardless of user interaction.
Click-through rate: The percentage of users who click on a link in your post
Conversion rate: The percentage of users who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase
Sentiment: Measures the overall mood of the conversation surrounding your brand online
Pro Tip: If your goal is brand awareness, focus on reach and impression metrics, or if sales are your priority, focus on conversions.
Tools to Measure Analytics
So, you know what metrics matter, but how do you find them?
Most social media platforms will offer built-in analytics dashboards that provide insights into how your content is performing. For example, you have Instagram Insights, TikTok Analytics, Facebook Business Suite, or LinkedIn Analytics. .
These analytics are all free to use and ideal for quick insights. They provide you with the data you need to adjust your content and posting strategy without additional tools.
However, if you manage multiple platforms or fancy more advanced reports, using a third-party tool is perfect. Platforms such as Later, Sprout Social, and Hootsuite are just a few examples of the options available. These tools allow multiple users to collaborate, plan, and monitor campaigns without manually pulling data from each platform.
Interpreting Data
Interpreting data is where analytics turn into action. It’s more than just tracking and reading numbers; it’s learning what those numbers reveal about your audience’s behavior and your content’s performance.
When crawling through the data, look for patterns. Which posts consistently perform well? What topics or formats spark the most engagement? Are there specific days or times when your audience is most active? Look at when users are dropping off. What is driving them to click? What content converts?
Spotting and identifying these trends will help you to make informed decisions, refine your strategy, and create more of what resonates with your audience. It’s all about turning those numbers into real insights that can help you make smarter decisions and strengthen your social media strategy.
Pro Tip: Building a social media report can help you see how your content and platforms performed over a specific time frame. You can create this monthly or quarterly, providing you with a clear, concise overview of your content’s performance. This will help your team, clients, or managers understand what’s driving results and where to go next.
The Summary Content Glow Up
Not sure what you’re supposed to be looking for? Or how to interpret the data? Our team at Summary has years of experience using analytics to grow brands. We can handle data collection, reporting, and strategy optimisation for you, turning complex metrics into actionable insights so your social media growth is fast, strategic, and measurable.
Chapter Eight: Scaling Social and Outsourcing
There comes a point in every growing business where managing social media internally becomes too time-consuming or inconsistent to be effective. You have more comments to reply to, endless content to create, and more platforms to juggle, all while coming with higher expectations from your audience. If social media is pulling you away from core business tasks or you are struggling to keep up with the latest trends, it might be time to outsource.
Outsourcing lets you shift away from ‘just getting things up’ to delivering structured, strategic, high-quality content that actually drives results.
Hiring In-house or Outsourcing
Deciding whether to outsource or hire in-house often comes down to your resources, capacity, and growth goals.
An in-house fire offers the benefit of someone deeply immersed in your brand's day-to-day operations. However, one person often can’t cover every area, making it challenging to scale effectively.
Outsourcing to an agency gives you access to a team of specialists who bring industry experience, advanced tools, and strategic oversight to your brand. However, they might not have a deep understanding of your brand as an in-house hire would.
For a deeper look at the pros and cons, check out our blog “Why You Need a Marketing Agency: The Pros and Cons.”
How to Choose the Right Agency?
Choosing the right agency to work with is crucial. The right team doesn’t just manage your social accounts; they help to shape your brand presence, influence how your audience perceives you, and drive measurable results across your platforms. That’s why it’s essential to choose an agency that goes beyond surface-level creativity and brings strategic expertise, industry knowledge, and a proven track record of growth.
A strong agency will take time to get to know your brand, audience, and goals, rather than just offering generic solutions. Look for an agency that communicates clearly and consistently, providing transparency around timelines, deliverables, and performance. The right agency should be an extension of your team, not an external vendor.
Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork
A strong social media machine works best when both sides collaborate. Your internal team may handle product updates, customer insights, and edits, while your external team focuses on strategy, content creation, scheduling, and analytics.
Consistent communication, regular check-ins, shared documents, and feedback all help to create a smooth workflow. A well-connected internal and external team not only produces better content but also drives faster growth, better engagement, and stronger brand consistency across all platforms.
Why Work with Summary?
You don’t need to look far for the right agency. At Summary Content, we don’t just market brands, we make them unforgettable. We provide full-service social media tailored to your brand’s goals and identity. With a decade of experience and a team of strategists, designers, and creators, we specialise in developing data-driven strategies paired with strong creative execution.
You won’t just be hiring an agency, you’re partnering with a team as invested in your success as you are. But don’t just listen to us, check out our testimonials from past clients.
