Using social media as a marketing and communication tool for your business is a good idea. Scratch that - it’s a flippin’ great idea!
BUT…. managing your “socials” can take a bit of time and effort if you want to do it right. It is not as simple as just creating a post on a whim and hoping for the best. Some careful planning and analysing can really help increase the value of your social media efforts.
Here are some handy tips to creating a great social media strategy and then managing all the accounts and their posts.
Plan out content
If you can use a mix of content, this will keep followers engaged. Use a mix of:
Images
Videos
Photos
Blog posts
Reviews
Testimonials
Infographics
Quotes or tips
Events / check-ins
Links to industry articles
Tone of voice and audience
Who are your followers?
· Young? Old?
· Has kids? No kids?
· Professional office workers perhaps viewing their socials on a computer, or tradies on the road all day maybe checking their phones?
· Are you a service-based industry or product-based?
Understanding who your audience is, will help you begin to craft your social media language and the story your page/s will tell.
It's a good idea to follow pages that your ideal customer might be following or interested in, and learn the type of language and information that is popular.
Frequency and timing
Isn’t it lovely when other people do all the research for you? Yep! There is a heap of studies to show the best times to post on the different platforms.
LinkedIn – weekday, preferably Tue-Thurs and between 10am-2pm
Facebook – weekdays mostly but sometimes posting on the weekend can work depending on your industry, and again between 10am-2pm
Instagram – this platform loves content “out of normal office hours” such as later in the evening and on the weekends, but week days are also good
*** Note – all these timings can be broken down so much further, into industry and demographic. If you really want to dive deeper into posting times, there is a wealth of knowledge online.
Schedule your posts
Grouping tasks together is an efficient use of your time. So, if you haven’t discovered scheduling, then start now!
Later, HootSuite and Buffer are all great platforms for scheduling social media posts and all offer a limited free option.
(To read our Scheduling blog click here).
Check your insights
Most platforms offer all the data for free so you would be mad not to use it. Check the data so you can see which posts seem the most popular an get the most engagement. Was it the type of post, the time it was posted or something else?
This is just a brief overview of social media, I could seriously write another 10 blogs expanding on parts of this one! Perhaps I will… but for now, if you are looking for advice or social media management, SB Creations have different social media packages, so there’s sure to be one to suit you.
And make sure you follow our Facebook page for more tips and useful tricks.