Quality control

What is quality control in social media?

Quality control, within the context of social media, is the process of ensuring all your social media posts, comments, messages, and other interactions align with your brand's and the social media platform's quality standards. This could look a little different for each brand, but generally speaking, it means ensuring your content is accurate, aligned with your brand, and relevant to your followers.

As an example, for Buffer, a social media post meets quality-controlled standards when it adopts our brand voice and tone, when we write as if we're talking with our target customer, when the post meets the platform's dimension and community guidelines (i.e., TikTok's community guidelines), and when we can provide a value add for our customers. 

Why is quality control important in social media?

Every post you publish on social media has the potential to reach thousands of people, which is why ensuring your content is proofread for quality is essential to your brand's social media success. As a social media manager, you must ensure that there are no inaccuracies, typos or that your text is tone-deaf, as it could damage your brand's reputation and lead to a loss of customer trust.

Plus, consistently publishing high-quality content is key for building a reliable brand and gaining traction with potential customers because it signals to your audience that you value their time and attention.

How can I implement quality control in my social media strategy?

Including quality control in your social media strategy is key to creating consistency and building a solid online brand identity. Here are some steps you can take to ensure quality control in your social media posts: 

• Create a social media style guide: Your social media style guide should include your brand's voice, messaging, personality, aesthetics, and ethos, and every piece of content should be in line with this guide. Check out Buffer's, Medium's, and Mailchimp's brand style guides. 
• Always proofread your content: Before posting, proofread your content for grammatical errors and factual inaccuracies. We'd recommend downloading a grammar and spelling checker extension to help with grammar and readability, such as Grammarly or Ginger.
• Keep an eye on engagement: Stay on top of comments to monitor whether your post resonates with your audience. Try out our engagement tool, which is built specifically for this.
• Use the right social media tools: Use social media management and monitoring tools that offer quality control features, such as post previews, auto-publishing, and sentiment analysis.

How do you create high-quality social media content?

Creating high-quality social media content is much easier than you think. Here are some steps you can take to ensure quality in everything you publish on social: 

• Deeply understand your brand: Understanding what makes your brand stand out from your competitors is key to ensuring that uniqueness is reflected in the content you publish.
• Get to know your audience: Understanding your audience on social media is one of the keys to success in creating high-quality content. The more you know about your audience, the better you'll be able to deliver the kind of helpful content and updates they're interested in.
• Plan your posts in advance: Taking the time to plan your social media posts in advance is a great way to ensure you stay consistent with your brand and that your content is quality. Planning ahead also provides plenty of time to have your content reviewed and approved.