If you're just starting out with your social media, and are trawling through endless pages of advice on what exactly to post and how — look no further. We're about to explain the 5-3-2 strategy that will provide a logical structure to managing your social media posts and improve social media marketing. These rules especially apply to Twitter and Facebook. It's recommended before you post that you research your strategy fully, to avoid thoughtless content that doesn't attract the right customers.

Before using this strategy, first ask the primary question for your business: who is your target audience? Are you focusing on inspiring entrepreneurs, marketing wannabes or early adopters? Your social media strategy will only work when you have an exact idea of who you're targeting besides, if you don't know who to target, who will read anything you post on social media? Once you've created a buyer persona, you can begin researching your social media strategy.

Imagine your social media is a personality, and your audience is a person attracted to that personality, like a best friend. You want to talk about smart topics, produce relevant content and information for this "friend" whilst at the same time discussing other people's work which might interest them to involve in a fruitful conversation. Finally you want to have a great time together, which is 20% of the strategy.

Based on creating 10 posts a week on each platform, the 5-3-2 rule is designed to produce varied and brilliant content.

The 5-3-2 rule

5 — 50% Content from other people

⚡ Pokemon Gone! Servers are down and no-one knows what to do https://t.co/WA8Rzp5J07

— Pluto Agency London (@PlutoLondon) 16 July 2016

Uh-oh!

Half of your social media needs to be relevant information that your audience would love to read about. Newsworthy topics that they can't help but tweet, or discussions that really involve your customers. There are many different examples of great places to find other people's content , and social media management tools are increasingly developing new software to make content finding easy. Our favourites include:

• Scoop
• Feedly
• Quora
• Social Media Monitoring

3 — 30% - Your own content.

Want to sell better & faster? Of course you do. Download this actionable guide today: https://t.co/3eKYexkQk5 #sales pic.twitter.com/jhm7SwgE65

— Pluto Agency London (@PlutoLondon) 18 June 2016

Telling your prospective clients that you produce great content attracts leads to your sites. Make sure you have a fine balance in your social media and replicate. A lot of digital marketers tell you to promote your own content ten times as much as any other content, however try to avoid looking spammy on social media by sticking to the 30% rule.

2 — 20% Fun Content

Can't decide between the slick #Hodor #Crowdfunding doorstop https://t.co/9NNtMN3uyL or the basic Ikea one. pic.twitter.com/1LTxqfgFW4

— Pluto Agency London (@PlutoLondon) 2 June 2016

You're not just another company trying to slog your products ruthlessly without getting to know your customers, this section, or the 20% is the "fun" section. It can start off with a (related) pun or joke that will make you approachable. We especially liked this Game Of Thrones joke.

Once you've mastered the 5-3-2 strategy play around with what works best for your brand, and after a few trial and errors, your business will be running effective social media content in no time.