Social media has changed just about every aspect of the way we conduct business today. The intrinsic importance of reaching a customer, through social media platforms is equally important to large businesses as it is to small business and startups.
However, statistics prove it is the small businesses who will benefit the most from assembling effective social media campaigns. But the question is; how does a small business owner with basic social media skills and a full schedule take on the time-consuming process of managing a social media presence?
This article will illustrate some of the many ways to address the most important tasks of social media management. While some of the following suggestions will involve adjusting your approach slightly, others will involve taking full advantage if you aren’t already doing this. . Study them all and decide which are best for your situation.
1. Only Use the Platforms you Need
You are sure to find that, according to the 80/20 rule, 80% of your most valuable customers will be present on 20% of the social media platforms. By keeping your focus where your social media community is most active, you will keep greater efficiency in your social media efforts.
Furthermore, once you have narrowed your selection of social media platforms to 2 or 3 options max, you will be able to manage them all by consolidating them into one platform if you look for a good management tool that works for them all. This is explained further on in this article.
2. Keep a Regular Schedule
Beginning your social media campaign without first setting up a proper schedule and agenda for meeting goals will not produce worthwhile results. When a plan has been laid out on paper or pixels, it is far easier to work from because it has a visual aspect — making it harder to forget. All your actions will be planned and therefore you won’t have to make decisions at the spur of the moment.
There are many online applications that can help to set up a functioning calendar for posting regular content. Create a format that indicates what will; be posted from day to day; this should include topics, updates and even the images that will accompany the post.
3. Consider Using Tools to Automate the Process
There have been many different tools created that can help to facilitate the process of scheduling and even automating your posts for major social media networks like Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and more. Following are some examples:
Tweetdeck— this is a very popular tool for managing multiple Twitter accounts. It can also be used to set up specific times and dates for all the Tweets you can post and also features a tool that allows you locate hot content online.
Hootsuite— Hootsuite works to set up posts on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Hootsuite is also user friendly with a very straight forward scheduling interface.
Buffer — the freemium version of this software will allow the user to connect up to 4 social media accounts from across Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. You will need the paid version of Buffer to gain access to a week’s overview of scheduled posts on an easy to understand social media calendar.
IFTTT – stands for ‘If This Then That’, this tool will allow you to create “recipes” or connections across your various social media accounts. The “recipes” will have triggers that can be used to setup and activate a social media action or post.
4. Outsourcing the Task of Social Media Management
There is a big difference between delegating this important task to a responsible handler, and shirking your responsibility. It all comes down to choosing the right person for this job. Having an expert in social media management handle this campaign can be hugely beneficial if the right manager is found. Following are a few features to look for in a suitable social media manager:
Social Media Enthusiast — find someone who has an active social media account(s) and can show you the progress they have made. Someone with plenty of experience will not suffer the setbacks of a serious learning curve as harshly.
Clearly Defined Objectives— your social media manager should be able to elaborate on various objectives they have found successful and explain how they can be adapted to your campaign. This will include some best practices to employ for quickly growing pages and attracting members of your specific demographic.
Good Communicator — there will be times when you will need to intervene on some level and having a manager who can contact you in time to extinguish a problem with angry former clients before they begin to tarnish your company image can prevent risks.
As the voice of your company, a social media manager should also be able to carry the tone you wish to convey to your audience; an authoritative tone for speaking with professionals or a whimsical, fun-loving tone for promoting vacation packages. A good communicator is also a great conversation starter and this is the way to engage a following and hold them while you present them your options.
Experienced — above all, you need someone with plenty of experience. The worst thing that can happen is to trust this essential aspect of business publicity in the hands of a rookie. In the end your social media management may end up costing you more and saving you no time. Go professional or DIY.
5. Curating Content
While promoting yourself is beneficial, and fun, promoting other people on your sight can be another effective way to increase your social media preponderance. Not only does this get the attention of your fellows but can often be used as a way to post your content on other sites.
But who has time to go running all over the social media world and Internet as a whole looking for the kind of content you need on your site? There are easier ways to accomplish this task.
If you are using Tweetdeck, you can run different searches in different columns for terms you find relevant. For example, a surfing instructor could look up the term “surf” and be presented with all the recent posts on this topic.
Instead of attempting all this on Twitter, you can simply refer to your Tweetdeck account and handle all the reposting from there. If you are interested in what the experts have to say about the content curation option, check out this post here.
6. Quality not Quantity
There will be literally thousands of different ways to engage your social media audience; practice them all and your efforts will be time consuming and largely ineffective. Not every strategy is suitable to your business goals and too many strategies make the possibility of reaching goals more difficult.
Narrow down your social media campaign to 2 or 3 fronts each with specific goals. If you hope to greatly increase your email list, for example, you could use the Facebook “call to action” button on your Facebook Page, to invite visitors to join your email groups. Something similar can be accomplished with Twitter’s lead generation cards.
7. Carefully Balance Posting
The best way to keep your social media audience attuned to your options is with a healthy stream of valuable content. The more frequent and consistent your posts the less chance your audience will have to wander off looking for other options.
Nevertheless, you will need to balance your production of content. First, because posting excessive amounts of content will not allow your audience sufficient time to enjoy and pass the content around, for maximum exposure. Second, producing a large amount of content is not as easy as it may seem, even for an industry expert; you will want to maximize the impact of every bit of valuable content.
On the other hand, having this creative content produced for you is also an option, click here for more information.
8. Choose the Optimal Time to Post
Post at a time you know the largest population of your social media audience is active on their accounts. This could be in the mornings from Monday to Friday. Regularly reviewing the information provided by Google Analytics can help you decide the best time for reaching the most clients. For more information please read: When Is The Best Time To Post On Social Media?
9. Keep up With Regular Maintenance
Never neglect to spend time buffing, polishing and maintaining your social media campaign. A big part of this job is approaching your campaign from the outside and making sure it is in the best conditions. Social media platforms perform many regular updates and changes that can affect the usability of your campaign. Staying on top of all these particulars keeps your social media presence in optimal conditions and saves you from down times.
In Closing — never underestimate the importance of your social media campaign, we never do. This is why we at Strong Social Media offer experienced support in producing and executing social media plans that can effectively increase growth and online prominence — visit our main page today to find out what we can do to maximize your brand’s social media image.
Jason Gordon, Founder – Strong Social
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