Social media is powerful – even people who ‘hate’ social media, can’t avoid the fact that it has an impact on their business and on them personally.
The secret of successful social media is to know:
- Who your audience are
- Where they’re active
- What they engage with best
- How you can help them
These are the questions I get asked most often about social media?
How often should I post?
This is a ‘how long is a piece of string?’ question! There are no hard and fast rules. Some people will tell you to post daily, others say you don’t need to. Personally, I think the frequency is less important than the quality of content.
There is not a ‘one size fits all’ answer. Look at what other people in your area of expertise are doing – and how many followers and comments they get. That doesn’t mean you should post at the same rate, but it will give you an idea of what is working – and what isn’t.
Do I need to post on all the social platforms?
No. There’s nothing wrong with maintaining a presence on the major platforms, but a weekly post may be enough for these. Focus your effort on the platform(s) where your target audience are most active and engage with them on that platform.
What should I post?
This is a huge question and the answer is specific to each business. There is a long list of potential content for posts – but lots of bland posts won’t work. Think about your audience, what do they want? What can you post that will attract their attention and deliver value to them?
Endless branded posts don’t work. Consider the person who is seeing the post, will it capture their attention or will they skip past it? Are they interested in the content or not? I see companies trying to ‘be human’, by presenting profiles of different members of their team – but how does that add value for potential clients? If there’s something that person does that will make a significant difference to a client, then by all means highlight that – but be selective about how much information you offer.
People like video, but only if the video has either entertainment value or is of use to them. Think about that when you’re putting content together.
A testimonial is great third party validation – but only if there are clear positive outcomes attached to it.
A quotation may be interesting – but only with your spin on it. Quotes are all over the internet, why have you chosen this particular quotation.
Don’t be afraid to share other people’s posts if they’re relevant to your audience, that will enhance your reputation as a curator and source of good information.
So the answer to what to post is – deliver value, share your take on things and be unique.
How much time should I spend on social media?
Being a left-brained systems geek, I believe there’s nothing like a good system! Our own social media is planned in batches, rather than on a day-to-day basis. The same applies to our clients schedules. We put together a spreadsheet showing the day, date, platform(s), image/video, text, hashtags and links. This lends itself to having weekly themes or promotions and a regular feature post on a specific weekday – e.g. Marketing Monday, Wednesday Wisdom, Friday Fun, etc.
However, remember that there are two sides to social media. Your posts – and engaging with other people’s posts.
If you are broadcast only, people will engage with you less, so follow your industry leaders and gurus, comment and engage with posts that interest you, support and appreciate other people’s content and they’ll repay the favour.
Connect with your current and past clients and engage with some of their posts – but be genuine and only comment if you have something useful to say.
I’d recommend scheduling a 10-15 minute session once or twice a day to do this. It’s the sort of thing you can do while travelling (not if you’re driving, of course) or tack onto the end of your email inbox clearing.
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Social media marketing works – which is why the big companies invest hundreds of thousands of pounds in it. Make it work for you!
