Welcome back! We hope you’re enjoying our regular blog series.
This month our marketing team is coming to you with actionable tips for your company’s social media efforts, as well as some tried and tested scheduling tools. Because… there is running social media campaigns, then there is building real, meaningful relationships with your customers! And yes, you can build genuine relationships with your customer base using social media.
So, where to start? Back in November last year we blogged about the importance of an email planning strategy, however, it is not just email campaigns that will benefit from a structured strategy. And as the old cliché goes, failing to plan, is planning to fail!
Tips to take action on today:
1. Begin with a plan and make a commitment to it - it is so tempting to just start posting; however, without a plan, it is hard to maintain the momentum over the long-term. So, know your goals and set your KPI’s.
2. Decide on the right platform for you – you do not need to be everywhere to get a good result.
3. Know your audience – a little research now, will go a long way in the future . We suggest writing down your top 5 desirable customer traits and compare those to your top customers.
4. Know your competitors – do not copy them but be aware of what they are doing. Don’t be afraid to follow their pages. It may highlight some missed opportunities for your social media .
5. Create a content calendar – It doesn’t need to be complicated, but it will assist you with posting content to the appropriate social channels at specified times.
a. Try the 80-20 rule to start with. Use 80% of your content for informational, educational or entertainment purposes, and the other 20% as promotion for your brand or content for selling your products.
b. Create content ‘pillars’ either around your product range or unique selling propositions (USP’s) and focus on regularly posting something for each ‘pillar’.
c. Identify your evergreen content. You can quickly run out of fresh ideas, however knowing you have a catalogue of ideas that you can re-post is half the job done.
d. Keep your content ideas handy. Make a list of your favourite reference sites, publications and industry news so you know where to look. You can also use an aggregator which will help you sift through all your reference sites stories a lot easier.
6. Monitor conversations and build your relationships - according to a Twitter and Research Now report, 93% of people who follow small businesses plan to buy from them. So, you must know what people are saying, especially outside of your account. Plus, they want to talk to you . Make sure you don’t just post and forget. The scheduling is the easy part, monitoring and responding to your posts and social inboxes is where the hard stuff really begins.
7. USE COMPELLING VISUALS - people are more likely to interact with visually appealing posts with photos, GIFs, infographics, or videos.
8. Quality over Quantity – do not post for the sake of posting.
9. Show your passion and the brand’s personality – people connect with people, so give your brand and business an identity.
10. Use the correct tools and schedule content – scheduling content in a block frees up your time for other tasks. It also means you have a consistent message being sent out to your customers.
Moving On…
Unfortunately, not everyone has a marketing team of specialists at their disposal, nor the budget to hire the big guns. But there are ways your campaigns can be as effective if not more so, than the big guys.
You do not need to have someone dedicated to social media every waking hour and then some! There are plenty of tools in the marketplace that can help you and your business be super-efficient and post on social platforms regularly. Add a little personality and great content, and you’ll be on the way to overcoming all the ‘noise’.
Because we know you are busy; we have put together a little chart for you covering the basics on a few selected platforms:
Of course, this table only shows you the bare minimum. There are other things you need to be mindful of when choosing your platform, such as how the billing structure works. So, for instance, a lot of these platforms state their monthly cost, however they bill annually. In this instance, while a small business may be able to afford $19 a month, can you afford $228 up front?
There is also the number of accounts and users. Be mindful that accounts refer to your social media channels, that is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. While users refer to the amount of different people that can log in to your main profile on the scheduling platform.
And lastly, make sure that the scheduling platform you choose will support all of your social media channels. The last thing you want is to make your decision, pay your fees and then realise you still need to log in to another platform to post some of your content.
We know this can be a little daunting, so our Marketing Professionals (with over 4 decades of combined experience) may be the missing piece to your marketing puzzle. Hit us up to learn more.
