According to a recent report, 4.70 billion people, which is more than half of the world’s population, now use social media.
The same report states that users spend an average of two hours and 29 minutes on different social media platforms.
These facts should spur every business owner to work on their social media management efforts since a lot can be gained from harnessing the potential of this critical marketing tool.
As a business owner, social media is crucial for establishing and increasing brand awareness and engaging with your target audience and customers.
You should also use different social media platforms to boost your website traffic, generate leads, and increase sales.
When you know how to use social media to your company’s advantage, you can have a powerful tool that helps you achieve all your business goals.
Maximising the Power of Social Media for Your Business
The key to getting the most marketing, branding, and sales benefits from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other platforms is managing all your social media management accounts effectively.
Below are seven tips and tricks you can follow for better, more successful social media management:
1. Set your goals.
Clear, realistic goals are the foundation for managing your social media accounts effectively.
You need to know why you need to join social media and what you intend to accomplish by being active on different platforms first.
You can list down as many goals as you want. However, you have to be specific and realistic.
If you have recently opened your business, your objectives should include building brand awareness among your target audience and establishing your reputation.
If you already have an established business, driving traffic from your social media accounts to your website and generating leads are goals worth adding to your list.
Make sure you set a period for working on these goals and that all measurable ones are quantifiable. Again, ensure all these are specific and realistic.
2. Create one login detail for all your social media accounts.
Whether you’re creating new accounts or already have existing ones, you would do well to have just one login detail for all of them.
With this simple trick, you and your social media manager will have an easier time logging in to your different accounts.
And if you or your social media manager are on leave, you can ensure one of you can log in and go about your posting routine.
However, make sure it is just you and the social media manager who know the password. Limit the authorised users to avoid unapproved and unscheduled posts.
3. Develop a social media posting routine.
Hootsuite shared a summary of the ideal number of times a day or week you should post on the most popular social media platforms.
Here is their summary:
- Twitter – one to five tweets per day.
- Instagram – three to seven posts per week.
- Facebook – one to two posts per day.
- LinkedIn – one to five posts per day.
You can keep this timetable in mind when you create your daily or weekly routine.
But whether you follow this routine or not, be open to experimenting and flexible with your schedule.
You have to constantly test and analyse the outcome of your posting schedule to find out which one offers the best results.
4. Make a social media content calendar.
Once you’ve set your goals and decided how often to post on the different social media platforms, start making your social media content calendar.
A social media content calendar is a planning and organising document or tool that lets you decide and schedule the type of content you want to publish and when over a period of several weeks or months.
With this calendar, you can manage the content you want to publish on different platforms and ensure you stick to your routine.
You can use Google calendar to create your social media publishing plan. Other tools you can consider include project management tools such as Monday.com and Trello.
To create your calendar, start by marking the dates with holidays and notable company anniversaries and events. Think of original or existing content you can share that announces or supports these important occasions.
Next, fill the calendar with a variety of fun, light-hearted, promotional, thought-provoking, and educational posts. There should be a good balance among these different content to get the attention of the online users and keep them looking forward to more.
5. Create engaging content.
Once you’re ready to start creating content, think about your audience and what appeals to them.
Keep in mind that creating great content involves listening to your audience. As such, narrow down your topics by getting inspiration from frequently asked questions or common concerns from customers.
You can also get inspiration from your customer purchase journey.
Regardless of the type of content you create, make sure it is easy to understand, concise, and shareable.
Next, always write engaging captions for your posts. They should be brief and conversational, with no grammatical or spelling errors.
Moreover, your captions should encourage the reader to engage with you by clicking a link to your website or answering a question you ask.
Lastly, include an image on your post to make it more appealing and eye-catching. Use Canva or Photoshop to create customised photos or graphics.
6. Add the right hashtags.
Including relevant and trending hashtags helps make your posts discoverable across the social media platform. It can also broaden your reach and boost audience engagement.
Use the search bar on each social media platform to look for the most suitable hashtags with high niche followers for your content.
Another trick is to create a list of your favourite industry or niche hashtags you can quickly add to your posts.
This means regularly looking up the hashtags trending on various networks relevant to your business and taking note of them.
7. Interact with your followers.
An important element of social media management is monitoring your posts for user engagement and interacting with them appropriately in the quickest time possible.
After posting your content, keep an eye on it. Respond to comments and thank those who liked it.
If someone asks a question, answer them as quickly as possible
These interactions can help expand your audience and make a significant impact on your brand and reputation.
Social media management requires consistent research and work. If you’re not up to it and don’t have a staff who can handle it, work with a service provider to ensure your business can harness the benefits of using the various social media platforms.
