Social Media. It’s powerful and unavoidable for businesses that need customers in order to make money. Even seasoned pros and experts are frequently overwhelmed by the rapid growth and seamlessly endless marketing possibilities.
Good social marketing requires you to Plan, Research, Entertain, Schedule, Share, Understand, React and Engage often before you’ve even had breakfast. You know what that spells? PRESSURE.
By the time business owners have reached out to us for help with their Social Media, they’re burnt out, their presence is confused, their content is inconsistent and overall it’s doing more to damage, than leverage their brand. If you’re feeling the social media PRESSURE, try to apply a few of these tips.
Social Listening: Put the posts down and listen
Social Media gives you the opportunity to search for your precise buyer persona and stand in a room alongside them listening in to their needs, wants and grievances regarding your industry or brand. In equal importance to engaging with the public, is simply listening. Using your ‘social ears’ to see what current and potential clients are saying about your products or competitors, when managed cleverly, is a significant market research and problem solving tool. Observe the conversations taking place online and keep an eye out for opportunities to offer obligation-free advice where needed, or put out any smouldering embers threatening to turn into a raging digital brand fire.
Improve Social SEO, know your keywords and hashtag to your advantage
We see a lot of #hashtagsthrownaroundwillynillySometimes we get so immersed in our content we forget that its purpose is simply to reach those that might be looking for it. When you hashtag relevant to your message, industry or brand, you’re more likely to reach and attract people engaged in similar discussion in real time.
Observe what hashtags other businesses in your field are using. If you’re promoting products available in a Black Friday Sale, you will want to use hashtags like #BlackFridaySale which are keywords users are more likely to search for than #myawesomesaleisnowon. Use hashtags in promotions and giveaways and get the search engine talking about your brand. Your company is called “Great Hotel,” you’re running a comp where you’re giving away a three night stay. Users must tweet/post 20 words to describe why they need a break using hashtag #GreatHotelPromo.
Employ Social Media Management tools
Honestly, don’t struggle with individually posting to your various social accounts, especially if it’s just to save a few bucks. Your time is money. Hootsuite allows three social accounts free, so there’s no excuse not to have a percentage of your postings scheduled, automated and out of the way.
There’s a plethora of management applications to choose from with a variety of very powerful tools. Everypost for example, allows you to pull visual content from sources such as Flickr, YouTube, Instagram or Pinterest. Buffer has a browser extension and mobile app that allows you to share content you come across online on the spot. From Agora Pulse you can market content and run promotions for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and pull valuable data and analysis from the comprehensive reports.
Delegate a percentage of your Content
You can’t do it all. Are you spending hours pouring through the internet searching for content? Maybe it’s time to entrust some content to a savvy staff member, Freelancer or Digital Marketing Agency. Professionals can generate a surprising amount of relevant and optimised content in a small period of time, which can alleviate an immense amount of strain and generate all-important leads.
Take care of those social media actions that keep getting transferred to the next day in your diary. Promotional campaigns, Facebook ads, analytics or simple post repurposing, your competitors will never know how you’ve found the time.
Reward and Nurture Relationships
Most business pages will find they have a few die-hard fans that always like and share their posts, take part in competitions and generally act as a loyal brand ambassador. Once you’ve freed up some time by hiring someone to help with content, allocate some time to nurturing relationships with those that support you. Have fun with it. Give away spot prizes for fan of the month, pay fans some compliments. Share and support their business pages. They are part of your brand community. You’ll be surprised at how much satisfaction this gives you.
Long article, we’re sorry; but you’re probably avoiding your social media obligations anyway, so we’re glad to have given you a break and hopefully inspired you to make some positive changes to your marketing approach. Reward, Employ, Listen, Improve, Entrust and have Fun. That spells RELIEF.
