Over the last few weeks we’ve had the pleasure of meeting lots of new businesses from all over Northamptonshire and talking all things social media and digital marketing – as part of our series of webinars and free consultations with businesses…
One of the common questions we’ve come across from a number of these businesses is “how can we make more of social media?”.
It’s an understandable questions – for small businesses and big businesses alike social media is a valuable lifeline right now that can not only help update customers and attract new customers, but also doesn’t cost anything to businesses to deliver either. With so many people keen to find out how they can be making more of their social media footprint at this time, we thought it might be useful to offer some of our tips that we also offer to clients and students at our webinars as well…
- Work smarter not harder. Even as a small agency with a fairly small social media footprint, we manage profiles on Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram and Youtube for our business – and lots of other businesses will operate on many other platforms as well such as TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest. With such a large network of profiles it can be difficult to keep on top of sometimes. If time is a limited commodity in your business then apps and services such as Buffer or Hootsuite can make a massive difference by allowing for cross publishing of content onto multiple platforms simultaneously or scheduling posts in advance to make publishing content less of a headache.
- Offer value to your followers. We’ve talked with a number of businesses locally about the basis of modern marketing relationships being built on a mutual exchange in value. A user following your social media accounts is OF VALUE to you as a business – that user just set up a direct channel for you to market directly to them. So in return, to see maximum engagement and actions from your followers then you need to offer them something of value in return. That could be as obvious as special offers for social media followers but just as importantly is offering interesting, relevant content that your followers want to see.
- Share and Share Alike. With that in mind, don’t see your social media channels as a one way advertising channel that you just need to fill with sales focussed messages. Integrating user generated content (especially content that features your brand, product or location prominently) into the mix along with shared content from other relevant profiles all adds both interest for your followers, and can help build your following as you mark out your position as an authoritative voice in your particular area.
- Share as often as you can. We know its hard. We know it can sometimes be a slog – especially when you are just starting out on a new platform or profile for the first time – to generate traction and eyeballs onto your feed. But in a world increasingly dominated by algorithms rewarding regular, engaging content, its important to commit as much time as you can to these areas to see maximum benefit. If you can only spare 15 minutes a week to look at your twitter account, you will see significantly slower growth and engagement that users posting for even 15 minutes ever day. While it sounds like a fairly banal statement it is very true with social media to say that you more you put into it as a business, the more you can hope to see out of it. With that in mind we always say….
- Spread the load! Time and again, when we work with clients, we often find that other staff members besides just the designated ‘social media’ person can also be amazing ambassadors for your brand in the digital world. Especially true in Linkedin – where there will often be many people within the same business all on the same platform – bringing in the tone of voice of other team members to the conversation and having other people available in these platforms for customers to talk to will not only offer a different perspective and tone of voice to the conversation but also lessen demand on the designated social person and again offer valuable assistance to customers.
Ultimately – a successful social media strategy will have a different shape, purpose and execution in every different business, and there isn’t a one size fits all approach that works for everyone. There are however a myriad of tools, services and strategies at your disposal to begin making the most of your social media activity moving forward.
If you’d like to talk to us about your own plans for social media this year and how we might be able to assist you in achieving your goals – please do get in contact with us today!