How to Manage your Social Media

How you manage your social media will depend on your type of business. The amount of time you spend on it will also vary, dependent on the needs of your company. After search engines, social media is usually where customers look to find out more about a product or company. At the very least, make sure you have a presence, so customers can get a “flavour” of what you have to offer. Different demographics are more likely to gravitate to certain platforms. In other words, understanding your audience and where to find them, is key.

What is Social Media?

Social media are digital channels that we use to communicate, share content and to network. People use social media socially, but as businesses we use social media to build brand awareness and to increase our company’s visibility. Also, it is a very useful tool to drive visitors to our website. There are different types of social media and they include social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn (albeit more professional). Photo sharing, such as Instagram. Video sharing, for example Youtube and Tik Tok. Blogging, microblogging and social community building also come under the heading of social media.

Where to Start

Understand your Customer Persona

Who is your customer? What age are they? What gender are they and what are their interests? These are some of the questions to ask yourself when building a profile of your customer.

First off, I would do some analysis to work out the best social media channels to focus on. For example, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram or Pinterest. Social use varies dependent on generation. Have a very clear picture of who your audience is and who you are targeting. Also, work out what your audience does on social media and how best to reach them.

Do your Research

A little bit of research now will really help in the long run. Also, do a little bit of thinking about exactly what you want to achieve on social media. In the vein of growth hacking and growth mentality give yourself goals and targets. Along the way, if you find you are not quite reaching your targets you should tweak and reassess. Always be in the mindset of how can I improve what I’m doing?

Your Profile

Once you have decided, which social media you are going to concentrate on, you must create a profile for each platform. Ensure you are setting up a business account. Platforms such as Facebook, require you to set up a personal profile first. Instructions for the various platforms will vary. You will also have the option to connect accounts, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. This will help you when posting content.

Whilst you may want to adapt your message slightly, depending on which social media you are writing for, you also want to make sure your company has a consistent message across all platforms. Make sure to include key contact details and your website’s URL, as well as location, type of business with a short summary and your page name.

Also, include images and logos where relevant. Make your business as visible as possible. It is possible someone is seeing your business for the first time on social media, so make their first impression of you is as impactful as possible.

Calls to Action

Where possible, you should create Calls to Action (CTA’s) in your profile. When running your social media accounts for business your goal is usually to drive visitors to your website and to make a purchase. Your CTA can encourage followers to join your email list so you can further market to them. Or you CTA could encourage your users to take advantage of an offer you have available currently. Keep your goals in mind when devising suitable CTAs.

Where Possible get your Account Verified

Verification is an important part of getting recognition for your business or brand online. Initially, the blue tick next to an account or profile was reserved for celebrities and famous people. However, now, it has become equally important for brands, influencers and companies to get themselves verified. The process varies from platform to platform. Where possible verify your account and it will add credibility and increase authority.

Track and Monitor

What is Social Listening?

This is the art of observing what conversations are being had online with regards to your own brand, your competitors and your industry. In order to do this effectively you will need to be following other key brands in your area of business as well as influencers, trade press etc. Usually, social listening involves taking some sort of action, which could be a comment on a particular post or adjusting your own social media or digital marketing strategy and messaging accordingly.

Concentrating on “social listening” is key, when managing your social media for business. You will identify keywords, long tail keywords, trends, hashtags and come to understand more about your target audience and industry if you spend some time, monitoring and eventually engaging with your followers.

The benefit of social media is that it is “straight from the horse’s” mouth, so to speak. Social media influencers can have a huge sway in your industry, so it is worth hearing what they have to say and identify who is following them and what they in turn are saying. Once you have done your initial analysis, you should still set aside some time every day for social listening, or every few days, depending on how much time you have allocated for your social media.

Social Monitoring

Social monitoring and social listening are similar. However, social monitoring is more transactional. Social listening is about looking at the big picture and forming an overview of current trends and conversations. Whereas social monitoring is about answering your customers’ or followers’ direct questions and responding to their comments. In order to manage your social media accounts affectively for your business you should make sure you put aside time to respond to your customers. Otherwise, you risk them forming a negative view of your brand. It is all about engaging and networking, so make sure you have time to do this effectively to create a positive association with your brand and business.

Put a Plan Together

To start with, put together a social media marketing plan, which supports your overall marketing strategy. Include which networks to feature and who your target audience is. As we have discussed a little bit already above. Once this is established, then you are ready to create your social media content calendar. Having a plan in advance will save you lots of time in the long run and will help you avoid scrabbling around for content and quotes last minute. When you have those moments of inspiration, it is good to have somewhere to write them down.

Your content calendar should include basic information such as where to post, which hashtags to use and who to tag. It should also include the copy, which you have prepared in advance. Clearly, your content calendar will be more or less complex, depending on how large your business is and how in-depth your social media strategy is. Even a very simple plan for a one man band, can make all the difference.

Use your Social Media to Drive People to your Website

When creating your social media strategy, it is important to have a goal in mind. Often, driving customers to your website is just as important as increasing your follower base. Have a strategy in mind as to how you will do this. A blog is a great way to add value for your customers and audience. It is also useful for driving people to your website. Your social media can help you to send people to your blog and website. Encourage people to share your posts. Incentivise them to click through to your blog or website.

Timing

Part of the social media content calendar, should include when to post. The morning is generally considered the best time and when an audience is most engaged. However, this will vary depending on where your audience is based and who they are. As we have mentioned previously, track and monitor. See when your audience are most engaged and post then. Post consistently and make sure your quality is good to keep your audience coming back for more.

Analyse

There are various social media analytics tools available. Google Analytics, HubSpot, BuzzSumo being a handful worth mentioning. Just keep in mind what you are trying to achieve and measure. Keep referring back to your social media marketing strategy. Are you aiming to drive traffic to your website? Or are you measuring engagement with your posts and clicks? Is growing your social media following your overall priority?

Paid Social Media

There are different types of paid social media including boosted posts, paid ads and influencer marketing. If you are a business with a budget for social media then you should consider which method and platform, will work best for your business in the long run. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram all have paid social media options, so choose whichever will work best for you, with a clear objective in mind.

The benefit of a paid social media strategy is the speed with which it can start to gain traction. Organic social media is a great way to increase brand awareness and to drive sales, but it can take a while to build and get going.

Another benefit of paid advertising on a platform such as Facebook, is that you can replicate your audience and hopefully gain more followers in the process. As well as introducing new customers to your brand. You can advertise to very specific audience, based on their behaviour and habits. So as long as you really understand your customer persona, paid social media advertising can be a very important part of your overall social media strategy.

Paid social media is scalable and you can set your limits so you stick within your budget.

Influencer Marketing

Identifying key influencers in your industry to collaborate with can help you to expand your reach and brand awareness. It is a very effective social media marketing channel and should be considered when managing your social media accounts. Referral from friends and family is a well known and effective acquisition strategy and the same principle applies with influencer marketing. Influencers have large audiences, who are engaged and trust them.

Finding an influencer whose principles and persona align with that of your brand can be a highly effective strategy to build your brand and business.

Further useful Tips

There are scheduling tools out there, which can really help to make your life easier. Hootsuite, Zoho Social, SproutSocial or Oktopost for B2B are just a few noteworthy ones. A quick Google search will help you find the right tool for you. Also, for ease, most platforms will allow you to cross post. For example, Instagram will allow you to connect your account to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. This will save you time and make you more efficient when managing your social media.

Follow the 80/20 rule. Use these platforms to inform and add value 80% of the time and the remaining 20% to sell and promote your products. Any more than that and you will start to put people off.

Respond to any feedback or queries or even complaints on these platforms as soon as possible after they have been posted. Reposting quality content is fine. Much better to post a previous post and keep the posting regular. It is good to have a few standard responses up your sleeve. Don’t do this too often though, or it will become obvious.

Make sure you sound and behave like a real person, obviously, this is much more appealing to your audience. Post any blogs you create on your website and drive traffic there as much as possible. And most of all, have fun with it. Veksa can also help with your Social Media. Connect with us!

Or good luck & start posting.