- Post content that helps your audience – Guess what…You are the industry professional–and your audience is following you just for that reason. Post relevance content that they can learn and grow from. Keeping your audience engaged by posting great content, and providing tools to help improve their business, organization, and personal life is key.
- Ask your followers how you can help them – Like the old saying goes. Ask and thy shall receive…By asking your followers how you can help them, helps you by knowing what content you are going to share in your next post, video, podcast, webinar…okay-you get the point.
- Show the human side of your business – Be Authentic. You are human–and so are your customers, clients, donors, and stakeholders. If you are not that suit and tie kind of guy, don’t wear it. Be yourself and watch how people will flock to you more for being genuinely fabulous.
- Share content from your customers’ sites – As a business owner, you are already aware that your customers are the lifeblood of your business. That’s why it’s important that you engage with them by sharing their content.Successful brands that interact with their customer understand that they want to enage and learn something of value.
- Respond in a timely manner – Is social customer service the new telephone, or the next email? Research found that 42% of consumers expect a response from businesses within 60 minutes. Is your company prepared to handle social media within an hour? Do not keep your consumers on hold. Be professional and response to posts and messages in a timely manner. There are social media management tools that can help you track this type of activity. One of my favorite tools that I use religiously is Hootsuite.
- Social Media is not about selling it’s about being social— First cultivate a relationship with your audience, so that eventually they will know, like, and trust you, and then you can have the opportunity to do business with them. Remember for every promotional post, post four valuable posts your audience would appreciate.
- NO NO NO’s – Had to share some of the biggest No No’s. Spamming, too many irrelevant #hashtags, too many duplicate posts, and why are you yelling–WRITING IN ALL CAPS, or tagging people you don’t know. STOP IT already.
- Be consistent – Post regularly on all social media networks to which you belong. If you are not consistent people will not take your business seriously. 2-3 posts average per week (depending on the platform) is fair. The worst thing is to visit a page and seeing no recent activity…and the sounds of crickets chirping…not cool. 🙂
- Provide content that engages readers – adding a photo to your post has a profound impact on the engagement percentage. Photos and videos are everything. We are living in a busy world, and to much text content is not going to cut it.
- Engage with followers – From your customers, to industry leaders and other brands, engage by retweeting, liking, and sharing others content. If done correctly, it will be a balanced engagement and potential partnership and/or new client.
- Don’t delete negative comments – Your customers have the right to share their criticisms about your brand. Plus, it looks as if your hiding something by doing that.
- Measure your performance – Use data from your insights, and make the necessary adjustments as required. Any successful business that uses social media marketing understands that metrics is the road map to social planning. Facebook Insights, Google Analytical, and and Hootsuite are powerful tools to help measure your performance and produce detailed reporting/tracking that you need to determine what is working, and what is not.
- Integrate your social media marketing with your other marketing efforts – Do you publish a monthly e-newsletter, host a podcast, or maybe even have a seminar planned for the future? Integrating social media marketing with your other marketing efforts will not only get the word in front of your audience, but also in front of your audiences following (friends and family); from them liking, retweeting, and sharing on their platforms.
Staying ahead of the social media marketing game will give you a marketing edge. You can be the lead, the influencer. The impact on your business or organization is huge when you start using social media as a marketing tool. It will drive people to your door.
Written by Tracy Thomas, Owner/CEO Stellar Marketing and Business Solutions
Marketing Resources and Small Business Solutions 