This week we released the 5th installment of our “What’s in Your Online Marketing Toolkit?” video series titled, “Your Social Media Strategy”. We discussed how to create your unique social media strategy and how to manage it.
If you are considering using social media tools for your business, here are four important considerations:
- Have a plan – You must have a solid plan that is unique to your company and goals.
- Choose the right tools – Utilize the social media sites and tools that make the most sense for your goals.
- Maintain consistency – Be consistent with posting, responses, and recording analytics.
- Have realistic expectations – Do not expect to see results over night, this takes time.
If you are already using social media tools, it’s a good idea to periodically evaluate the effectiveness of your current efforts by analyzing your current status, determining your goals, selecting the right tools and reviewing your statistics on a regular basis.
Analyze Your Status
- Which sites are you on?
- How often are you posting?
- What are you posting?
- How many likes/followers/etc. do you have?
- What kind of engagement are you getting?
Ask the same questions about your competitors to look out for any missed opportunities.
Determine Your Goals
- What are your company goals? Are they to increase brand awareness, foster engagement, make a sale, generate leads, receive donations, or possibly a combination of these?
- Take a look at the sites you are already on and the ones you are thinking about joining. What are their goals? For example, Pinterest is image-based and great for companies that have a visually appealing product. On the other hand, LinkedIn is a professional site, perfect for B2B companies.
Choose Your Sites
- When choosing your sites, you do not want to be on too few, such as only one, because you will not have enough presence. However if you are on too many you may overextend your resources. Choose 2-3 sites that mesh well with your company goals.
Manage your Sites
- What to post: Go easy on the product plugs and sales pitches and focus on engaging questions and industry news. However, every company is different so feel out what is best for your particular audience.
- When to post: Decide the best times to post for your follower base and specific site.
- Who should post: Designate a social media manager or team to handle your efforts.
- Create a schedule to determine how many times per day you will post and if you will post on weekends (hint: you probably should!).
Maintenance and Analytics
- It is very important to maintain your site and constantly track and record analytics!
- You can sign up with Google Analytics or keep your eyes peeled for analytics that come with your site such as Facebook’s Insights and LinkedIn’s Analytics.
These tips for creating your social media strategy are just the tip of the iceberg! We hope they can help you get started and as always, Informatics has a highly skilled social media management team that is more than willing to take on your campaign.
