= 702
= 10.51; = 0.17
12 years old:
= 668
= 12.49; = 0.15
14 years old:
= 628
= 14.33; = 0.59
Girls:
10 years old: 52.3%
12 years old: 51.9%
14 years old: 53.0%
Boys:
10 years old: 47.7%
12 years old: 48.1%
14 years old: 47.0%
Self-body perceptions, especially among girls in recent decades, have become a cause of global adolescent self-esteem ( 38 ). The basis of adolescent self-presentation is increasingly based on photos and videos on social media ( 39 , 40 ). Social media can create appearance standards that are difficult to achieve ( 39 ), especially by adolescents and children. This situation can lead to lower self-esteem and emotional disturbances ( 41 ).
Previous research, for example, conducted in Norway on a group of 1998 respondents aged 10-14 (boys and girls), looked at which social media platforms they use, how often they post something on their account per month and how often they post photos of themselves and how often they comment on other people’s statuses and photos ( 41 ). Results indicate, among other things, that other-oriented social media use lowered self-reported appearance among respondents aged 10-12 and 12-14, while self-oriented use had no effect on this ( 41 ).
Another Dutch study, involved 440 teenagers of both genders aged 12 to 19 ( 29 ). The study was aimed at, inter alia , indicating whether the use of social media is a significant predictor of body dissatisfaction. The results showed that teens who reported more use of social media also reported higher levels of body dissatisfaction ( 29 ).
Interesting research in this area was also carried out in Singapore, where 100 female teenagers aged 13 to 18 were recruited from various local communities, such as the Chinese, Malayas, and Indians ( 42 ). Total smartphones use time, social media use, cognitive internalization, anxiety about social appearance, respect for the body, and position of weight control were assessed. The results suggest that only excessive use of social media, according to the authors, more than 3 h a day results in lower body evaluation results. Interestingly, the authors also explored the issue of engaging in online and offline appearance comparisons. They found that while social media escalates unhealthy cognitive patterns, it also does so outside of the time spent in these media, harming teenagers’ own body assessment, including a girl study ( 42 ).
A very different report is indicated by researchers from Denmark, who focused on the effects of social networking on body image among 604 adolescents (male and female) aged 11 to 18 ( 43 ). The study was related to the frequency of use of social media and information about the appearance that teenagers obtained from their peers and its impact on their body image. The results show that the more teens used social networking sites, the more often they received feedback about their appearance. Interestingly, the feedback received did not predict body dissatisfaction ( 43 ). This finding contradicts most studies about the association of social media with negative body image.
Visual representations of food and beverage products in traditional communications and digital marketing primarily involve products high in fat, sugar and salt ( 44 ). YouTube is also very popular with children aged 5 to 15 ( 45 ), and the information contained in the content viewed influences their eating behavior ( 44 ). Research shows that exposure to food-related information contained in social media content, known as influencers, directly, immediately influences the choice and consumption of promoted foods by 9–11-year-old children ( 46 , 47 ).
An equally interesting study on the marketing impact of a product promoted via the YouTube platform conducted in qualitative terms is a British study on a group of children (boys and girls) aged 10-11 years ( 48 ). The children watched a marketing video promoting the sweet product and were informed that the purpose of the study was to gather their views on YouTubers advertising food and drinks. The results of this study indicated that youtubers are a source of entertainment, information, social acceptance, and experiences for children, moreover, the products promoted by youtubers were desired by children ( 48 ).
The same authors also analyzed the channels of Youtubers popular among children to determine the scope and nature of the recommendations of food products and drinks ( 44 ). They also examined the proportion of “healthy” and “unhealthy” referrals. As it turned out, each of the commands had at least one food or drink tip, more often they were unhealthy than healthy. As many as 92.6% of the analyzed videos contained food and drink tips, which corresponds to 29.9 tips per hour ( 44 ).
A study by American researchers on a sample of 884 male and female adolescents aged 13-17 indicated that food ads posted on Instagram were very attractive to the respondents compared to traditional food ads ( 49 ). Interestingly, the Instagram symbol itself caused much more interest in the promoted product ( 49 ).
Various studies cited so far indicate that social media can have a very strong influence on the development of eating patterns and body image in children and adolescents, which in turn may be one of the risk factors for developing obesity when promoted behaviors are not associated with a healthy lifestyle.
Originally, the sociocultural model proposed by Thompson et al. ( 28 ) focused on traditional media, e.g., television, magazines, and the traditional “face-to-face” perception of the other person. Today, teenagers derive their ideal-looking messages from social media. According to the above-mentioned sociocultural model of comparison, the internalization of ideal appearance communicated through social media results in body dissatisfaction ( 50 ). This is supported by the analysis of the research presented in this article. In most studies on the impact of social media on body image, the target respondents are teenagers and adults and their results show a negative relationship between social media and body dissatisfaction (e.g., 43 , 50 – 52 ). Therefore, attention should be paid to the importance of the problem of social media in the context of incorrect body image. If the problem is large among adult users of social media platforms, the group of children and adolescents may be even more at risk ( 53 ). Unfortunately, there are few studies that can approximate to the magnitude of this problem among children, and thus allow for the design of prevention activities aimed at child caregivers that would help monitor online behavior and allow for the protection of children from negative self-perception.
Social media also contributes to the promotion of food products to users ( 54 ). Influencers, youtubers show specific food products, recommend their purchase, and they are not always healthy ( 55 ). These are sponsored advertisements paid for by large food concerns. Research to date provides sufficient evidence of the effectiveness of influencer marketing on consumption primarily among adolescents ( 56 ). What is important for such marketing activities is that about 98% of people from the “Z” generation, i.e., people born after 1995, have a smartphone, and moreover, half of teenagers spend 10 or more hours a day using the telephone ( 57 ). It is therefore a powerful tool to influence choices, including food preferences. The Norwegian Consumer Council in 2019 showed that about 20% of all influencer-related marketing activities were for food and drinks ( 58 ). So far, research on this subject is not sufficient, and as far as we are aware, such research has not been conducted on a Polish sample. The exposure of children and adolescents to the influence of people for whom the most important thing is to sell a not necessarily healthy product is underestimated. Influencers often choose the way they present themselves on the Internet ( 59 ), using products and brands for self-presentation rather than actual consumption ( 60 ). The cognitive development of younger children (12 years of age and younger) is still developing, and thus a critical understanding of the commercial world will not be the same as the critical thinking skills of adults ( 61 ), therefore the popularity of influencers and content that they post on their profiles is particularly attractive to young audiences. Given this information, it is important to ensure the protection and control of young people in the digital space, and it should also be crucial for preventive health. To effectively protect children and adolescents, an intervention in the use of social media must be developed, and to implement it, a better understanding of how the use of social networking sites affects body image and food choices should be developed. Taking these actions is also important due to such phenomena as “echo chamber” (this can be defined as personalizing the content used on the Internet and matching it to the profile of a specific user, which means that we only receive information on social media that has been determined by appropriate algorithms as consistent with our interests and views; ( 62 ) and “mukbang” (this can be defined as an online audiovisual broadcast through a video-streaming platforms such as TikTok or YouTube in which a host consumes different amounts and types of food and interacts with the audience using a multimodal communication; ( 63 ), which may have a significant impact on shaping the awareness, body image and eating patterns of children and adolescents.
Summarizing the current knowledge, in future studies related to childhood obesity we should focus on: (I) analysis of the impact on eating patterns and body image of content from TikTok/Instagram/Snapchat, (II) taking into account the interaction of parents with social media in shaping un(healthy) eating patterns and (positive and negative) body image in their children and adolescents, (III) taking into account the assessment of children’s mental health (e.g., depression, eating disorders), (IV) taking into account children under the age of 10, (V) research among Polish children and adolescents including the division into genders, (VI) doing more experimental research in this topic.
Finally, it is also worth pointing out that social media can be used as a resource in the prevention and treatment of obesity. A closer look at this topic seems to be particularly important due to the fact that, among adults, social media is not only a very important source of information about lifestyle, but also a source of social support when people attempting to lose weight (e.g., 64 , 65 ). Interestingly, this research shows that this online support is even greater than that they receive from their family and friends in the non-virtual world ( 64 ). Therefore, it would be interesting to check whether we recognize a similar effect in children and adolescents. Moreover, as is commonly known, many materials available on social media are not prepared on the basis of reliable and credible sources of information (e.g., 22 , 66 , 67 ). However, by increasing preventive activity in social media and using modern solutions related to social media (including the use of hashtag signs), we can have a greater impact on the health awareness of children and adolescents around the world, including fighting myths about obesity and patients who have been subject to stigmatization. Moreover, it seems clear that the topic of social media and their relationship with body image and eating patterns should be obligatorily addressed by psychologists and nutritionists during obesity therapy, thanks to which we can correct patients’ attitudes in this regard and increase knowledge and raise awareness among their caregivers.
AM, KC-B, and JM conceived the study and performed literature search. All authors were involved in writing the manuscript and had final approval of the submitted and published versions.
This publication was financed by the Medical University of Silesia in Katowice.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
From the latest big breakthrough to the most influential and inspiring figures on campus to Pitt in the community, Pittwire is your official source for what’s happening now.
Sophia Choukas-Bradley is submitting her first paper about adolescents and social media to a psychology journal. It’s 2014, the early days of online culture, before teens lived on likes and danced on TikTok, and before parents and experts worried too much about the consequences.
Perhaps it explains why Choukas-Bradley’s paper is so quickly rejected, and why the journal’s anonymous peer reviewers offer her such a chilly — and ultimately shortsighted — rebuke.
Why would we study things online when we already know what happens offline? This is just the same thing in a slightly different form.
“And now everyone laughs when I say that,” she says. “Because anyone who's a parent, and anyone who has been a teen during the years of modern social media, understands that this is fundamentally different.”
Choukas-Bradley, an assistant professor of psychology at Pitt, has spent over a decade studying interpersonal and sociocultural influences on adolescent mental health, with an emphasis on social media, body image and LGBTQ+ youth.
She’s coined terms that are now commonplace in the discipline, published nearly 80 papers and served on two American Psychological Association expert advisory panels to develop guidelines for adolescent social media use — the first of which influenced the 2023 Surgeon General’s report.
“I’m just really interested in how social media changes how we view ourselves,” she says.
It all began in middle school when Choukas-Bradley noticed how she and her friends turned from carefree kids to self-conscious teens, preoccupied with the way the world judged their bodies and behaviors. Years later, as a graduate student at the University of North Carolina, she observed how the ubiquity of smartphones and the always-on nature of social media turned up the volume on those already pulsing adolescent body image issues. She calls it “the perfect storm.”
Through her research at Pitt’s Teen and Young Adult (TAYA) lab , Choukas-Bradley has been able to show that teens’ constant worry about being judged by an online audience — known as appearance-related social media consciousness, or ASMC — not only magnifies body image concerns but can also manifest in disordered eating and depressive symptoms.
This phenomenon has become a focus of the TAYA lab, which Choukas-Bradley founded in 2017. Her team uses multiple methods — large-scale questionnaires, in-depth interviews and even eye-tracking devices that reveal what teens are looking at online (spoiler alert: they’re fixating on attractive images) — to better understand the dangers of social media and develop interventions to diminish its negative power.
Her research shows that disordered eating and depressive symptoms influenced by social media use are more pervasive among teens who identify as girls and LGBTQ+ youth and that simply warning teens of the danger isn’t enough.
Together with Brian Galla from Pitt’s School of Education, the Center for Digital Thriving at Harvard (where she serves as the clinical psychology lead) and Common Sense Media , Choukas-Bradley has created evolving intervention materials that show teens how big tech intentionally targets youth, manipulating images, information and — ultimately — their own views.
But Choukas-Bradley is quick to add that social media isn’t all bad. In fact, for most teens, it’s become a critically important part of interpersonal development. And, for many LGBTQ+ youth, particularly those who live in rural communities or who don’t have parental support, social media is a lifeline, providing connection and acceptance they may not receive in their physical communities.
Recently, Choukas-Bradley received a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award , which will allow her to study 300 girls over 18 months using multiple research methods to better understand the breadth and depth of how teens experience their time online.
“I believe it's important not to figure out how we can get kids offline — I think social media is here to stay — but to figure out how to have the time spent online be more positive and values-aligned.”
More than 100 reference examples and their corresponding in-text citations are presented in the seventh edition Publication Manual . Examples of the most common works that writers cite are provided on this page; additional examples are available in the Publication Manual .
To find the reference example you need, first select a category (e.g., periodicals) and then choose the appropriate type of work (e.g., journal article ) and follow the relevant example.
When selecting a category, use the webpages and websites category only when a work does not fit better within another category. For example, a report from a government website would use the reports category, whereas a page on a government website that is not a report or other work would use the webpages and websites category.
Also note that print and electronic references are largely the same. For example, to cite both print books and ebooks, use the books and reference works category and then choose the appropriate type of work (i.e., book ) and follow the relevant example (e.g., whole authored book ).
Examples on these pages illustrate the details of reference formats. We make every attempt to show examples that are in keeping with APA Style’s guiding principles of inclusivity and bias-free language. These examples are presented out of context only to demonstrate formatting issues (e.g., which elements to italicize, where punctuation is needed, placement of parentheses). References, including these examples, are not inherently endorsements for the ideas or content of the works themselves. An author may cite a work to support a statement or an idea, to critique that work, or for many other reasons. For more examples, see our sample papers .
Reference examples are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Chapter 10 and the Concise Guide Chapter 10
Textual works are covered in Sections 10.1–10.8 of the Publication Manual . The most common categories and examples are presented here. For the reviews of other works category, see Section 10.7.
Data sets are covered in Section 10.9 of the Publication Manual . For the software and tests categories, see Sections 10.10 and 10.11.
Audiovisual media are covered in Sections 10.12–10.14 of the Publication Manual . The most common examples are presented together here. In the manual, these examples and more are separated into categories for audiovisual, audio, and visual media.
Online media are covered in Sections 10.15 and 10.16 of the Publication Manual . Please note that blog posts are part of the periodicals category.
Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts
This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.
Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.
The Online Writing Lab (the Purdue OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. Teachers and trainers may use this material for in-class and out-of-class instruction.
The On-Campus and Online versions of Purdue OWL assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement. The Purdue OWL serves the Purdue West Lafayette and Indianapolis campuses and coordinates with local literacy initiatives. The Purdue OWL offers global support through online reference materials and services.
Facebook twitter.
Creating your social media marketing strategy doesn’t need to be painful. Create an effective plan for your business in 9 simple steps.
A social media marketing strategy is a summary of everything you plan to do and hope to achieve on social media. It guides your actions and lets you know whether you’re succeeding or failing.
The more specific your plan is, the more effective it will be. Keep it concise. Don’t make it so lofty and broad that it’s unattainable or impossible to measure.
In this post, we’ll walk you through a nine-step plan to create a winning social media strategy of your own. We’ve even got expert insights from Amanda Wood, Hootsuite’s Senior Manager of Social Marketing.
Bonus: Get a free social media strategy template to quickly and easily plan your own strategy. Also use it to track results and present the plan to your boss, teammates, and clients.
A social media strategy is a document outlining your social media goals, the tactics you will use to achieve them and the metrics you will track to measure your progress.
Your social media marketing strategy should also list all of your existing and planned social media accounts along with goals specific to each platform you’re active on. These goals should align with your business’s larger digital marketing strategy.
Finally, a good social media plan should define the roles and responsibilities within your team and outline your reporting cadence.
Create. Schedule. Publish. Engage. Measure. Win.
No time to read the whole article? Let Amanda, Hootsuite’s own Senior Manager of Social Media Marketing, guide you through our free social media marketing strategy template in less than 10 minutes:
Step 1. choose goals that align to business objectives, set s.m.a.r.t. goals.
The first step to creating a winning social media strategy is to establish clear objectives and goals. Without goals, you have no way to measure success and return on investment (ROI) .
Each of your social media marketing goals should be SMART : s pecific, m easurable, a ttainable, r elevant and t ime-bound.
Psst: Need help getting started? We’ve got social strategy guides for small businesses , financial services , government , higher education , healthcare , real estate , law firms , and non-profits .
Oh, and if you need examples of smart social media goals , we’ve got you covered there too.
Once you’ve decided on your goals, track them in a social media strategy doc — grab our free template if you don’t have one already.
Vanity metrics like number of followers and likes are easy to track, but it’s hard to prove their real value. Instead, focus on things like engagement, click-through, and conversion rates.
For inspiration, take a look at these 19 essential social media metrics .
You may want to track different goals for different social media networks, or even different uses for each network.
For example, if you use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your website, you would measure click-throughs. If Instagram is for brand awareness, you might track the number of Instagram Story views. And if you advertise on Facebook, cost-per-click (CPC) is a common success metric.
Social media goals should align with your overall marketing objectives. This makes it easier to show the value of your work and secure buy-in from your boss.
Start developing a successful social media marketing plan by writing down at least three goals for social media.
“ It’s easy to get overwhelmed by deciding what to post and which metrics to track, but you need to focus on what you want to get out of social media to begin with,” says Amanda Wood, Hootsuite’s Senior Manager of Social Marketing. “Don’t just start posting and tracking everything: match your goals to your business, and your metrics to your goals.”
Get to know your fans, followers, and customers as real people with real wants and needs, and you will know how to target and engage them on social media.
When it comes to your ideal customer, you should know things like:
Here’s a simple guide and template for creating audience/buyer personas .
Don’t forget to document this information in your strategy doc!
Social media analytics can also provide a ton of valuable information about who your followers are, where they live, and how they interact with your brand on social media. These insights allow you to refine your strategy and better target your audience.
Jugnoo, an Uber-like service for auto-rickshaws in India, used Facebook Analytics to learn that 90% of their users who referred other customers were between 18- and 34-years-old, and 65% of that group was using Android. They used that information to target their ads, resulting in a 40% lower cost per referral.
Check out our guide to using social media analytics and the tools you need to track them .
Odds are your competitors are already using social media, and that means you can learn from what they’re doing.
A competitive analysis allows you to understand who the competition is and what they’re doing well (and not so well). You’ll get a good sense of what’s expected in your industry, which will help you set social media targets of your own.
It will also help you spot opportunities and weaknesses you can document in your social strategy doc.
Maybe one of your competitors is dominant on Facebook, for example, but has put little effort into X (Twitter) or Instagram. You might want to focus on the social media platforms where your audience is underserved, rather than trying to win fans away from a dominant player.
Social listening is another way to keep an eye on your competitors.
Do searches of the competition’s company name, account handles, and other relevant keywords on social media. Find out what they’re sharing and what other people are saying about them. If they’re using influencer marketing, how much engagement do those campaigns earn them?
Pro tip : Use Hootsuite Streams to monitor relevant keywords, hashtags and accounts in real-time.
Try Hootsuite for free. You can cancel anytime.
As you track, you may notice shifts in how your competitors and industry leaders are using social media. You may come across new, exciting trends. You might even spot specific social content or a campaign that really hits the mark—or totally bombs.
Use this kind of intel to optimize and inform your own social media marketing strategy.
Just don’t go overboard on the spy tactics, Amanda advises. “ Make sure you aren’t ALWAYS comparing yourself to the competition — it can be a distraction. I’d say checking in on a monthly basis is healthy. Otherwise, focus on your own strategy and results.”
If you’re already using social media, take stock of your efforts so far. Ask yourself the following questions:
Once you collect that information, you’ll be ready to start thinking about ways to improve.
We’ve created an easy-to-follow social media audit guide and template to walk you through each step of this process.
Your audit should give you a clear picture of what purpose each of your social accounts serves. If the purpose of an account isn’t clear, think about whether it’s worth keeping.
To help you decide, ask yourself the following questions:
Asking these tough questions will keep your social media strategy focused.
During the audit, you may discover fake accounts using your business name or the names of your products.
These imposters can be harmful to your brand—never mind that they’re capturing followers that should be yours.
You may want to get your accounts verified too to ensure your fans know they are dealing with the real you.
Here’s how to get verified on:
Decide which networks to use.
As you decide which social networks to use, you will also need to define your strategy for each.
Benefit Cosmetics’ social media manager, Angela Purcaro, told eMarketer : “For our makeup tutorials … we’re all about Snapchat and Instagram Stories. [X], on the other hand, is designated for customer service.”
Hootsuite’s own social team even designates different purposes for formats within networks. On Instagram, for example, they use the feed to post high-quality educational infographics and product announcements and Stories to cover live events or quick social media updates.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hootsuite 🦉 (@hootsuite)
Pro tip : Write out a mission statement for each network. A one-sentence declaration to keep you focused on a specific goal.
Example: “We will use X for customer support to keep email and call volumes down.”
Or: “We will use LinkedIn for promoting and sharing our company culture to help with recruitment and employee advocacy.”
One more: “We will use Instagram to highlight new products and repost quality content from influencers.”
If you can’t create a solid mission statement for a particular social media channel, you may want to ask yourself if it’s worth it.
Note : While larger businesses can and do tackle every platform, small businesses may not be able to — and that’s ok! Prioritize social platforms that will have the most impact on your business and make sure your marketing team has the resources to handle content for those networks. If you need help focusing your efforts, check out our 18-minute social media plan .
Once you’ve decided which networks to focus on, it’s time to create your profiles. Or improve existing ones so they align with your strategy.
Pro tip : Use high-quality images that follow the recommended dimensions for each network. Check out our always-up-to-date social media image size cheat sheet for quick reference.
We’ve also got step-by-step guides for each network to walk you through the process:
Don’t let this list overwhelm you. Remember, it’s better to use fewer channels well than to stretch yourself thin trying to maintain a presence on every network.
Never heard of social SEO ? It’s time to learn.
44% of Gen Z consumers use social platforms to research their purchase decisions, which means it’s extra critical that your channels are optimized for social search.
That means making sure your profile names are clear and descriptive, you’re including relevant hashtags and keywords in your bio and on every post, and you’re using features like alt text and captions to include your target keywords as naturally as possible.
While it’s important that your brand be unique, you can still draw inspiration from other businesses that are great on social.
“ I consider it my job to stay active on social: to know what’s trending, which campaigns are winning, what’s new with the platforms, who’s going above and beyond,” says Amanda. “This might be the most fun step for you, or the hardest one, but it’s just as crucial as the rest of them.”
You can usually find these on the business section of the social network’s website. ( Here’s Facebook’s , for example.)
Case studies can offer valuable insights that you can apply to your own social media plan.
You could also check out the winners of The Facebook Awards or The Shorty Awards for examples of brands that are at the top of their social media game.
For learning and a laugh, check out Fridge-Worthy, Hootsuite’s bi-weekly awards show highlighting brands doing smart and clever things on social media.
Who do you enjoy following on social media? What do they do that compels people to engage and share their content?
National Geographic, for example, is one of the best on Instagram, combining stunning visuals with compelling captions.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by National Geographic (@natgeo)
Then there’s Shopify. The ecommerce brand uses Facebook to sell themselves by showcasing customer stories and case studies.
And Lush Cosmetics is a great example of superior customer service on X. They use their 280 characters to answer questions and solve problems in an extremely charming and on-brand way.
Source: lushcosmetics on X
Notice that each of these accounts has a consistent voice, tone, and style. That’s key to letting people know what to expect from your feed. That is, why should they follow you? What’s in it for them?
Consistency also helps keep your content on-brand even if you have multiple people on your social media team.
For more on this, read our guide on establishing a compelling brand voice on social media .
Consumers can also offer social media inspiration.
What are your target customers talking about online? What can you learn about their wants and needs?
If you have existing social channels, you could also ask your followers what they want from you. Just make sure that you follow through and deliver what they ask for.
Sharing great content is essential, of course, but it’s equally important to have a plan in place for when you’ll share content to get the maximum impact.
Your social media content calendar also needs to account for the time you spend interacting with the audience (although you need to allow for some spontaneous engagement as well).
Your social media content calendar lists the dates and times at which you will publish types of content on each channel. It’s the perfect place to plan all of your social media activities—from images, link sharing, and re-shares of user-generated content to blog posts and videos. It includes both your day-to-day posting and content for social media campaigns.
Your calendar also ensures your posts are spaced out appropriately and published at the best times to post .
Pro tip: You can plan your whole content calendar and get recommended best times to post on every network based on your past engagement rate, impressions, or link click data in Hootsuite.
Hootsuite’s Best Time to Publish feature
Make sure your content strategy and calendar reflect the mission statement you’ve assigned to each social profile, so that everything you post is working to support your business goals.
(We know, it’s tempting to jump on every meme, but there should always be a strategy behind your social media marketing efforts!)
You might decide that:
Placing these different post types in your content calendar will ensure you maintain the right mix.
If you’re starting from scratch and you’re not sure what types of content to post, try the 80-20 rule :
You could also try the social media content marketing rule of thirds :
Whatever you decide on, be sure to document it in your strategy doc.
If you’re starting a social media marketing strategy from scratch, you may not have figured out how often to post to each network for maximum engagement yet.
Post too frequently and you risk annoying your audience. But, if you post too little, you risk looking like you’re not worth following.
Start with these posting frequency recommendations:
Pro tip : Once you have your social media content calendar planned out, use a scheduling tool to prepare messages in advance rather than updating constantly throughout the day.
We might be biased, but we think Hootsuite is the best social media management tool. You can schedule social media posts to every network and the intuitive calendar view gives you a full picture of all your social activity each week.
Try It Free
Remember those mission statements you created for each channel in Step 5? Well, it’s time to go a bit deeper, a.k.a. provide some examples of the type of content you’ll post to fulfill your mission on each network.
If you’re not sure what to post, here’s a long list of social media content ideas to get you started. Or (to make it even easier) you can use an AI tool like OwlyWriter to generate on-brand content in a flash.
The idea here is to:
This last point especially will help you avoid any tension when your colleagues want to know why you haven’t posted their case study/whitepaper/blog post to TikTok yet. It’s not in the strategy, Linda!
Ideally, you will generate content types that are both suited to the network and the purpose you’ve set out for that network.
For example, you wouldn’t want to waste time posting brand awareness tweets if you’ve designated X/Twitter for primarily customer support. And you wouldn’t want to post super polished corporate video ads to TikTok, as users expect to see short, unpolished videos on that platform.
It might take some testing over time to figure out which type of content works best on which type of network, so prepare to update this section frequently.
We won’t lie: content creation isn’t as easy as everyone not on the social team seems to think. But if you’re struggling, Amanda suggests going back to basics.
The first question to ask is: is there cohesion between your content types? Is your content providing value? Do you have a good mix of entertaining, or educational content? What does it offer that makes a person stop and spend time? Creating a few different content pillars or categories that encompass different aspects of storytelling for your brand, and what you can offer your audience is a good start.
This brings us to Step 9.
Your social media marketing strategy is a hugely important document for your business, and you can’t assume you’ll get it exactly right on the first try.
As you start to implement your plan and track your results, you may find that some strategies don’t work as well as you’d anticipated, while others are working even better than expected.
That’s why it’s important to document your progress along the way.
In addition to the analytics within each social network (see Step 2), you can use UTM parameters to track social visitors as they move through your website, so you can see exactly which social posts drive the most traffic to your website.
You’ve got your numbers, but how do they stack up to the competition in your industry? Industry benchmarks are a great way to evaluate your performance against other businesses in your category.
If you’ve got Hootsuite Analytics , you can use our built-in social media benchmarking tool to compare the performance of your social accounts against the average of brands in your industry with just a couple of clicks.
You can set up custom timeframes, switch between networks — Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and TikTok — and look up benchmarks for metrics like followers, audience growth rate, engagement rate, clicks, shares, and much more.
You’ll also find resources to improve your performance right in the summary section:
Once this data starts coming in, use it to re-evaluate your strategy regularly. You can also use this information to test different posts, social marketing campaigns, and strategies against one another. Constant testing allows you to understand what works and what doesn’t, so you can refine your social media marketing strategy in real time.
You’ll want to check the performance of all your channels at least once a week and get to know the basics of social media reporting so you can track your growth over time.
Pro tip: If you use Hootsuite, you can review the performance of all your posts on every network in one place. Once you get the hang of checking your analytics, you may even want to customize different reports to show specific metrics over a variety of different time periods.
Surveys can also be a great way to find out how well your social media strategy is working. Ask your followers, email list, and website visitors whether you’re meeting their needs and expectations, and what they’d like to see more of. Then make sure to deliver on what they tell you.
Spoiler alert: nothing is final.
Social media moves fast. New networks emerge, others go through demographic shifts.
Your business will go through periods of change as well.
All of this means that your social media marketing strategy should be a living document that you review and adjust as needed. Refer to it often to stay on track, but don’t be afraid to make changes so that it better reflects new goals, tools, or plans.
When you update your social strategy, make sure to watch our 5-step video on how to updating your social media strategy for 2024:
Ready to start documenting? Grab your free social media strategy template below!
What’s next? When you’re ready to put your plan into action, we’re here to help…
Save time managing your social media marketing strategy with Hootsuite. From a single dashboard you can easily:
Try Hootsuite for Free
With files from Shannon Tien .
Do it better with Hootsuite , the all-in-one social media tool. Stay on top of things, grow, and beat the competition.
Get expert social media advice delivered straight to your inbox.
Christina Newberry is an award-winning writer and editor whose greatest passions include food, travel, urban gardening, and the Oxford comma—not necessarily in that order.
Amanda Wood is a senior social marketing professional who combines analytical and creative thinking to build brands.
As head of social at Hootsuite, Amanda oversees the global social strategy encompassing organic and paid social on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn, a social engagement and listening strategy, and an employee advocacy program.
As the leader of a high-performing social team, she has extensive experience collaborating with creatives to bring campaigns to life on social and drive business results.
Struggling to structure your efforts on social? Set yourself up for success with our guide to setting and exceeding smart social media goals.
A social media audit is the best way to review and improve any social marketing strategy. Our free checklist and template make it easy.
Social media content calendars are the best way to plan and organize your content. Build one in 4 easy steps or use our free templates.
Automate your work, save time, and build better relationships with your audience by using the right social media marketing tools.
COMMENTS
The inclusion criteria were as follows: using their Facebook and/or Instagram account daily and being 15 to 35 years old. This age range was chosen in light of the current literature, which shows that use of social media and body image concerns involved mainly teenagers and young people [28,29]. Moreover, participants recruited via a health ...
The prevalence of social media use in modern society has led to increased imagery viewing, which can impact female body image satisfaction levels and subsequent eating disordered. behavior. Social ...
The widespread and daily use of picture-based social media platforms by young people has many ramifications. Considerable research has now investigated the uses and effects of such social media in the realm of body image, where body image refers to a person's perceptions, thoughts, and feelings about the way they look [1].Reviews summarizing this research have uniformly concluded that social ...
An extensive body of research has documented detrimental effects on women's body image from exposure to idealized images displayed in traditional media formats such as fashion magazines and television, especially for women with already high levels of body concern (for meta-analyses, see Ferguson, 2013; Grabe et al., 2008; Groesz et al., 2002; Want, 2009).
This review presents recent trends in social media and body image research, with a particular focus on different social media platforms, features unique to social media, and potentially positive content for body image. First, it was found that visual platforms (e.g. Instagram) were more dysfunctional for body image than more textual platforms ...
The effects of active social media engagement with peers on body image in young women. Body image, 28, 1-5. [Google Scholar] Holland G., Tiggemann M. (2016). A systematic review of the impact of the use of social networking sites on body image and disordered eating outcomes.
Objectives: This study aimed to update the scientific knowledge concerning the relationship between the use of social networking sites and body image among adolescents. Methods: A preregistered systematic review was conducted following PRISMA guidelines and allowed to include 30 peer-reviewed articles for qualitative analysis, consisting of 26 unique samples (n=31,331; M age =14.89; SD age =1.07).
Review of negative and positive aspects of social media use for body image. •. Instagram and Snapchat relate more strongly to a negative body image than Facebook. •. Taking and editing selfies are more harmful than posting selfies. •. Fitspiration content has negative effects, just like thin-ideal content. •.
This study aimed to conduct a scoping review of the emerging evidence focused on social media content that might support positive body image. A total of n = 35 studies (21 experimental) examining social media were identified along with n = 11 studies not specifically focusing on social media but with clear implications.
According to sociocultural theories of body image, specifically the tripartite influence model, three primary sociocultural influences contribute to the development of body image concerns: media, peers, and parents/family (Keery et al., 2004; Thompson et al., 1999), with media the focus of the present study.In the model, relationships between sociocultural influences and body image are ...
A growing body of literature suggests that interactive media-based web technologies, such as social networking sites, have a measurable impact on users' perceptions of and attitudes toward their own bodies, as well as resultant weight and shape control behaviours (Holland and Tiggemann 2016; Mingoia et al. 2017).Thus far, however, most research has focused on girls and young, heterosexual ...
In relation to body image and social media, ... As noted above, this does not intend to be a comprehensive review of the literature in lower income settings focusing on social media and body image, but rather to provide some illustrations of such emerging work. Nevertheless, together this research suggests that many of the processes and effects ...
This study employs a rapid literature review to elucidate the psychological implications of social media usage among young adults with regard to their body image and self-esteem.
Participants were asked how dress and social media practices affect their body image. Social media provides a platform for self‐objectification, body surveillance and to receive immediate appearance assessments. ... The findings from this review of observational literature are consistent with experimental studies exploring image‐related ...
2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Body image. Body image is defined as "the mental picture of one's body, an attitude about the physical self, appearance and state of health" (Fobair et al., ... Studies on body image and social media can be divided into two categories: (a) studies which use content analysis to investigate the type of pictures posted ...
body image is an important factor in a person's mental health and well-being. Self-esteem is t he subjective assessment of one's own competence, worth, and value as a person. It is. based on a ...
This literature review aims to examine the negative and positive aspects of social media use, on body image, eating disorders (ED), and explore the possible mechanisms driving these relationships. The method of this review focuses on the qualitative interpretation and synthesis of the knowledge state of the knowledge in the literature selected for a defined topic.
Deanna R. Puglia: Social Media Use and Its Impact on Body Image: The Effects of Body Comparison Tendency, Motivation for Social Media Use, and Social Media Platform on Body Esteem in Young Women (Under the direction of Seth M. Noar) The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of social media use on body esteem in young women.
(Stanborough, 2020). This study aims to observe and assess the effects of social media use in relation to negative body image and suggest methods to increase body positivity and acceptance across social media users. Literature Review Social media use among adults in the United States has significantly increased
Results Body image and social media. Self-body perceptions, especially among girls in recent decades, have become a cause of global adolescent self-esteem ().The basis of adolescent self-presentation is increasingly based on photos and videos on social media (39, 40).Social media can create appearance standards that are difficult to achieve (), especially by adolescents and children.
The current study assessed the relationship between social media appearance-related preoccupation (SMARP), body shame, body surveillance, and social physique anxiety (SPA). Data were collected from 1,049 participants, and a correlational analysis and a hierarchal regression were conducted. Significant relationships were found between body shame, body surveillance, SMARP, and SPA, supporting ...
A total of 23 articles met inclusion criteria for review. Findings reveal a concentration of conceptual articles compared with empirical studies and a predominance of a psychodynamic lens. Limitations in sample populations and study designs supporting the evidence base for body image in the social work literature were also evident.
The media, including social media and blogs may be a catalyst for triggering body image issues such as Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) and eating disorders (Phillips, 2005, p. 178). Body Dysmorphic Disorder, BDD will be explained later. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, even the smallest amount of
In most studies on the impact of social media on body image, the target respondents are teenagers and adults and their results show a negative relationship between social media and body dissatisfaction (e.g., 43, 50-52). Therefore, attention should be paid to the importance of the problem of social media in the context of incorrect body image.
A decade of research on social media and youth has earned Sophia Choukas-Bradley a National Science Foundation CAREER Award. Photo by Tom Altany. ... with an emphasis on social media, body image and LGBTQ+ youth. She's coined terms that are now commonplace in the discipline, published nearly 80 papers and served on two American Psychological ...
More than 100 reference examples and their corresponding in-text citations are presented in the seventh edition Publication Manual.Examples of the most common works that writers cite are provided on this page; additional examples are available in the Publication Manual.. To find the reference example you need, first select a category (e.g., periodicals) and then choose the appropriate type of ...
The Online Writing Lab (the Purdue OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service at Purdue.
Creating your social media marketing strategy doesn't need to be painful. Create an effective plan for your business in 9 simple steps. ... Check out our always-up-to-date social media image size cheat sheet for quick reference. ... A social media audit is the best way to review and improve any social marketing strategy. Check in on your ...