Are you struggling to figure out how to get people to respond to your Facebook posts? You’re not sure how to get more out of LinkedIn and you’re not sure what hashtags do anyway?
Maybe you need help streamlining your efforts so you maximize the amount of time you spend on social media.
Here are three steps every successful business takes with social media to tie it to their revenue goals.
1—Plan— It’s a waste of time to open an account on 7 or 8 on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Ello, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Google + and Tumblr at the same time without a plan.
The reason is the good old 80/20 rule. In other words, 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. So, don’t spread yourself too thin. Focus on one or two tools at a time, ones your customers use. It’s silly to be all over Pinterest if your goal is to sell software products to investment bankers. Sure, a few may be there, but your time is better spent on LinkedIn.
Make sense?
2—Participate – Starting a Facebook Page, making a post or two and then forgetting about it for a few weeks isn’t the path to successful social media marketing. (You can substitute “Facebook” for any social media platform if you prefer.)
To make this work for you, you’ll need an idea of the types of content you’ll post (see “plan” above), how often and who will implement—just to name a few.
One of the biggest questions I get asked is what type of content people should post. While the specifics will vary from business to business, the general rule is a combination of educational and fun. Pictures are essential to successful social media efforts.
3—Metrics – This is an important piece of your social media success. YET, there’s a caveat, don’t get hung up on this at the beginning. If you only have 50 people on your page, that’s not enough data. You need to focus instead on building your audience with interesting content, old-fashioned networking and perhaps an advertising push.
Once you have at least a 100 people or so, you can see what people care about. If you’re getting “likes” and shares, use that information to drive your future posts.
Experiment with times of day/night and types of content. Did you post a photo at noon on a Tuesday and it flopped but the photo before posted on a Thursday at 9 p.m. and got a ton of notice?
It can be tough to stay on top of your social media marketing efforts. Every day I get emails with “what types of content should I use?”, “Where should I focus my energies” and “How can I turn my “likes” into customers?”
Here’s how you can get help.
Jennifer Gardella of Your Social Media Hour and I have partnered to with to offer you a social media coaching program tailored for you and your business. She and I have worked with hundreds of small business owners like you to help them create effective social media plans, streamline their content and build on what works.
That’s what we want to do for you. Learn more here.
