Social Media Tips

There is so many things to consider if you’re in charge of Online marketing for your business, social media has become essential for all companies no matter what their size is.  Social media is more than just random posting about your products or next big sale, here are a few tips to help you find a good social media strategy.

1. Test and Measure – Use analytics

Google analytics and web master tools are essential to finding out if your social media efforts are converting to traffic to your website. Each Social Media platform also has tools to help analyse your social media campaign success and failures. Collect the reports, read them and translate them into actions to tweak your campaign to gain better results.

 2. Know the best times to post

Find out the best times to post for your industry or demographic.  If your promoting to business the best time maybe from 10am to 4pm, Monday to Friday.  For consumers it may on weekends, later at night or early morning between 7am to 9am when people are commuting to work on public transport.  Do your research and know who are targeting.  Some social media platforms like Facebook allow you to schedule a particular time and date for the post to be released.  There are also 3 partly software like Hoot Suite, Buffer or Sprout social which you can use to schedule posts on many different platforms, these sites generally have a monthly fee and be aware you may not want to despatch the same post on all platforms, for example a LinkedIn post should be more corporate and have a business aspect whereas Facebook would foster a more personal statement.

3. Build a relationship

It’s a two way street, Social media is all about engagement, asking your fans to get involved, it is not about preaching at your audience, but engage them,.

4. Choose the right Social Media platform

There are hundreds of social media platforms, it can become very daunting as to which ones to use.  The most popular ones in Australia right now are Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram,  Twitter and Blogs. Take some time to see which platforms are best for your business and limit them to five max.

5. Make social media special

Your fans should get something out of being your fan or liking your page. Offer truly desirable things like discounts, competitions and giveaways solely to people who follow you on social media.

 6. Use images and videos

Info-graphics and videos are what attracts people to your posts, just like the old saying “a picture is worth one thousand words”

7. Hire a social media manager

Find an expert to can get the job done quickly and professionally.  They can work magic and in a fraction of the time anyone else can. It’s a real job (and deserves a real salary). You may think you can do it all yourself but in reality it’s another very daunting aspect of marketing your business which you would need to invest a lot of time researching to keeping up with the latest trends and technology for the online world and that takes you away from actually running your business.

 8. Don’t spread yourself too thin

There is no point joining every new social media platform that is created.   It really is all about quality, not quantity, don’t bit off more than you can chew. Choose your best social media matches and give them the attention they deserve.

 9. Don’t treat it like a personal site

Business social media is very different to your personal social media.  What you post on your own profile for friends and family is not the type of posts you would use for your business they need to be very specific for your industry or demographic.

 10. Build business associations

Find other companies or business that are complimentary to yours but are not a direct competitor.  Swap and share posts to get a greater reach.

11. Scared of Trolls? Don’t entertain them

Many business are scared of negative comments or trolls, it is a reality that once your social media following gets big enough, you’ll have a few trolls and baiters. Be professionally, and know when to publicly respond, when to let it go, and when to delete their comments. Each action has a time and place.

 12. It’s not a 24hr a day job.

If your handing the social media for the business, don’t have Social Media notifications on your personal phone, as it can easily turn into a 24/7 project. Don’t let it.

13. Know when to call it quits

If you’re just not performing well on a particular site no matter who’s to blame, know when to end it. Just like any other bad relationship, nobody is benefiting from dragging it out. Fix it or quit it, but make a choice.

 14. Yell out “BUY NOW”

At the end of the day all business set up social media to improve sales. However, this isn’t a direct sales platform.  Think of this scenario,  you are walking down the street and a shop owner starts yelling “you buy now” and attempt’s to drag you into their shop.  Would you be keen to purchase anything, let alone let yourself be yanked into that store? Hell No,  no one likes a pushy sales person.  So don’t use your social media platforms it that way. Instead, foster relationships and provide information or entertainment for free, this will improve sales, whether directly or through building customer relationships.

 15. Complete your profile

Fill out every possible corner of your profile info: about us, general information, site address, website, General information, categories, brand etc. This is where your business’ personality is developed and it’s important for brand reputation and management.

 16. Develop Social media strategies into your business plan.

Whether you’re a startup or a solid corporation, you should still have a business plan in place for growth. Implement social media into it and set goals for different time periods. This is how you’ll see if social media is worth it for you.
Ever heard the saying “Failing to plan is planning to fail?” That old but wise adage often rings true when it comes to social-media marketing. Creating a detailed, goal-oriented social-media strategy is just as important as having a rock solid business plan.

 17. Make fans want to see your posts

This seemingly simple advice is the toughest. What would you want to see as a fan or friend? Find “sticky” posts that have viral potential and people want to share.

 18. Make it easy to share

Along with number 17, make it as easy to share your posts as possible. Link them to a landing page on your website, another social media site (Facebook and YouTube play together nicely) or your blog. If it’s easy for someone to just click and share, they’re more likely to do so.

 19. Find the right tone between personal and professional

Find the right balance between personal / professional.  You want to be approachable but don’t want to get too personal and not come across too severely professional either. This is a hard balance to hit, but when done well, makes fans think they “know you” in the right way. Don’t’ get emotional or reactive.

 20. Grammar and punctuation matters

Don’t  just let auto correct or spell check inspect your writing. You need to check, double check, and have someone else check each and every things you put on social media. An embarrassing typo can cause a world of hurt and is easily avoidable. Have you ever left the “L” out of “public service?”  or used missed a comma “I like cooking my family…..” could save lives.