Social media may not seem like it’s tough work, but the time it takes to go in and make sure you’re posting, tweeting and blogging effectively truly is tedious – that is, if you’re doing it right.
You can throw anything up on any social channel, but that right there is your mistake. What is the incentive? What is the goal? What is the purpose? If you’re aimlessly posting just to post, it is time to stop what you’re doing and consider putting together an effective social media strategy.
A sound strategy can increase your following, convert customers, increase sales and help to boost results.
If you’re starting to feel like your social presence is lacking or you aren’t seeing those results you’re hoping for, take into consideration all of the ways you can and should improve your social efforts.
Create the Content Your Audience Wants to See
Now it’s time to figure out which content you would like to share. Whether it be articles, blogs, images, video, infographics, campaigns…the options are endless. Then, narrow that list down to what content will be most effective for your targeted audience. Which content will speak most directly to your consumers? Lastly, look into your insights. Who is viewing your page? What times are they online? Where are they coming from? All of this information can help mold your social strategy for you. All it takes is some digging around to see what will best benefit your social presence.
Social media is a place where you get to listen to your consumers – so give them what they want!
Create content that people will want to talk about. Become the “go-to” person for your consumers when they’re looking for information, questions or suggestions. Consider yourself a crossing guard – you want to be pointing people in the right direction (to YOUR pages). Direct the traffic in the way you want it to go.
Set Some Realistic Goals
First, make a list of goals you wish to accomplish to improve your social presence. Once you have figured out what goals you would like to make happen, now it’s time to implement.
If you’re looking to generate traffic and create a following or even increase overall interaction, be cognoscente of who you’re following. Make sure you’re following related industry pages and other local businesses. A little bit of interaction can go a long way and before you know it, you can increase your following to reach your desired goals.
Have Some Incentive
Now it’s as easy as just posting, right? Wrong!
How many times a day should you be posting – and what times? Where are your followers most likely to be influenced – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn or some other channel? Consider that each platform serves different purposes. LinkedIn and Twitter are great places to explore the more professional side of your business. These two outlets are ideal for blogs, industry articles and things of this nature. Facebook and Instagram serve as more of a culture-hub for you and your business to share the fun side of things whether it be events, internal photos or videos. Of course these can all be meshed together, but just be careful of the audiences you’re attracting on every platform as they can often times vary.
As far as frequency goes, Facebook should be anywhere from two to three times a day, whereas Twitter you can get away with posting anywhere from five to ten times. These can include retweets, mentions or other interactions as well. Instagram is a bit more lax where a post or two a week still shows you’re active – same with LinkedIn.
Make sure to post to multiple social sites in addition to your own blog and website.
Once you have a feel for what material should go where, sort it out and find the prime times to be sharing your content to ensure it is getting the most reach as possible. Want to take that a step further? Use relevant and popular hash tags on every post. Whether or not people are talking about you and your brand, they may still be talking about the same things you are. Hash tags are a great way to put your name out there to become more searchable.
Get Some Graphics
Everything you post, no matter what channel, should have some sort of graphic. Think about it – if you’re scrolling through your own social media feeds, aren’t you more likely to stop and acknowledge a post that has a corresponding video or an eye-catching graphic?
Infographics are a great alternative to putting all of the information you want to share into a more interesting post. They’re easy to understand, consume and share. On Twitter and LinkedIn, infographics get more shares than any other content. Consider “shares” an online version of “word-of-mouth,” and this is exactly what you’re going for. You want to be the first business your customers think of and are talking about – so make it happen.
Don’t have a designer on-hand to make up an interesting graphic? No problem. Canva is a free and easy-to-use source to create your own graphics in an easy-to-understand and quick way.
Get Organized
Make a social content calendar. Know what content you’ll be sharing on which days, times and what platforms. Whoa! That in itself seems overboard, but trust us – it’s necessary. It’s tedious to go in and put all of this together, but it’ll make your life easier in the long-run. Map out a month at a time and you’ll never have to stress about what’s going on for that week.
As content changes and new things come up, it’s as simple as updating your content calendar and finding the most opportune time to post.
Stop Making Excuses!
I get it – we’ve all been there. Some days we’re more creative than others and some days there’s more to share than others. But now that you’re armed with knowledge on sculpting an effective social media strategy, there’s no more excuses.
Get out there and do your homework, do the research and start molding together a social strategy that works best for your business and caters to your targeted audience