When it comes to marketing, social media amounts to a lot more than a gaggle of teenagers posting carefully altered photos of their coffee du jour on Instagram. Social networks reach customers anywhere and everywhere they are, and they’re checking their favorites all the time.
Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for businesses to under-utilize social media, missing leads and organic exposure in the process. Here’s how to jump start your social media marketing.
Establish All The Social Media Accounts You Need...
...and none you don’t. Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. Instagram. These seem like no-brainers. But what about more niche social media, such as Angie’s List, Snapchat, Quora, or ParentsConnect? You might be able to reach your ideal customer with a higher impact on other platforms that truly target your market audience. If you are more service-oriented business-to-business, LinkedIn might be a better fit than Facebook. If you make sell an amazing product for consumers, take over Instagram’s trending posts.
Some of this is common sense and some is target market research. Make sure you have both before you commit to a major social media strategy.
Know Your Platform
Social Media is always changing. Facebook algorithms recently changed to favor individual’s content over corporations. Instagram now bases what you see based on how the user interacts with it, rather than chronological order. If you grasp what’s happening with algorithms while staying up to date with your content, you will stay at the top of the news feed.
But remember: algorithms and interaction patterns change all the time. You will need to dedicate yourself to understand how each social media channel works and watch the platform carefully in case they add any changes. If you can’t dedicate time and effort to monitor these changes, you might want to bring in some help.
Post Regularly
Posting once a month doesn’t help anyone. In fact, it can hurt you. Brands that post erratically can be perceived as ads, rather than content you chose to follow. Posting randomly could remind people that you are interrupting their social media experience of friends and puppies (see more about how interruptive advertising doesn’t work).
According to partner market research, 68% of our respondents said that they would want a brand to post between 1-2 times per day on Facebook; 63% on Twitter; 72% on LinkedIn. That’s a lot of posting. Make sure you can keep up to snuff by having enough content and manpower to sustain that kind of posting.
Tailor Your Content
Adding a few jokes to your posts is great, but make sure it works for your audience. Same with the content, links, pictures … everything! And this applies to all the different audiences you have. If you run a magazine, you want to make sure you attract both subscribers and advertisers. That’s two whole social media campaigns. If you can’t have a post relate to your audience with consistency and creatively, it’s not worth the time you put into it.
The Right Place At The Right Time
People check certain social media outlets at different times. Are you capitalizing on that? We might check Facebook a little bit more on Friday afternoons (no judgment here) and check in on LinkedIn on Tuesdays. If you time your content to pop up right when people are checking their profile, you might get more bang for your buck.
Interact!
This may seem like an intern-level task to check in on social media and like photos with your products or comment on LinkedIn posts in your industry, but this interaction might be what makes your brand stand out! Being personable and present is one of the things that keep your brand at the top of people’s minds. According to Forbes, the largest spending group in the U.S.- millennials- are more loyal to brands with whom they have a personal relationship.
Ask For Help
Social media can be a monster of a job, requiring gobs of research and time. If you want to get the most out of it, but don't have the budget or time, it’s likely you need a little help. To learn more about what Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and other platforms could do for your business or to get the help you need, set up a free, no-obligation consultation at United WebWorks by calling (912) 231-0016. Our social media marketing team can't wait to get your brand the exposure, interaction and content it deserves, and you might be surprised at how do-able it is!