If you're in business today, you probably have some sort of presence on social media. From cafés on Instagram to B2Bs on LinkedIn, social has become a critical part of marketing today.
The best thing about social, though, is that you don't have to have the biggest budget out there. There are plenty of ways to capitalize on your social networks but keep your marketing dollars close at hand.
Here's our top 4:
1. Pick a Social Media Management System
There are dozens out there vying for your business, but they all offer about the same thing:
- scheduling
- posting in multiple places simultaneously
- link shortening and tracking
- metrics
They'll offer these in different ways and combinations, and you'll find some variation, but that's the gist.
At Moveable Online, we're big fans of
Buffer, but there are so many different ones.
SproutSocial is great for a quick metrics overview, while
Hootsuite is probably the best at offering a snapshot of what's going on across different networks.
But unless you make a pretty chunky investment, their analytics are a little lacking. Get a system, get familiar with it, and watch as your social media streamlines itself overnight.
2. Pick And Choose
You don't have to be on every single network out there. For one, there are just too many and it's not practical (do you really need to spend
$9,000 on a Netropolitan profile?) and for two, your customers probably congregate on a few. Here's a rough guide to what major networks excel at:
- LinkedIn is best for B2B and professional services
- Pinterest and Instagram are the first stop for food/clothes/photogenic products
- Google+ is a good site for showing up in searches, so is good for everyone
- Twitter’s a great place to generate buzz around your content, keep in touch with your customers, and quickly and effectively establish thought leadership
- Facebook is a great place to get your company in front of a lot of eyeballs, fast
3. Establish KPIs
Social is a marketing tool like any other. There has to be a way to measure if it's successful, or it's impossible to tell if it's worth the money. The best way to do this is to measure KPIs.
First, establish broadly what you want your networks to do. Let's say drive traffic to your website. Then you want to establish ways to measure success. Let's say you want to drive 5,000 people from your social media to your website in the next three months. By building a KPI that has a target, a metric, and a timeframe, you can objectively evaluate if your social media is worth the time.
As your social networks grow and if you're happy with them, you can begin building out these KPIs to more closely track ROI.
4. Build A Publishing Schedule (and stick with it)
Social media has by nature a short attention span. Make sure that you're publishing frequently. The easiest way to do this is work about a week in advance. Tie in your social media to your content production schedule. Whenever anything gets published on your site, make sure it gets pumped via social as well. With any event, schedule a whole range of social media promotion ahead of time. You want it going out as automatically as possible. You can respond to
timely events, but it's not always a last-minute panic.
So, there are four tips to get you started on your social media way, or ramp up the networks that you’ve got. The most important thing about social, though, is that it is, for the most part, reliant on your engagement and your content. If in doubt, generate the best quality content that you can and talk to your customers.
If you do that, they'll flock to you in droves.
