If you want to take your social media and your company’s online image to the next level, you need to be doing more than just posting a couple of photos or news stories.
But don’t panic, you need to invest your time smarter, rather than simply ploughing more hours into creating more and more elaborate content… So what can you do?
1. Get in the know – actually use social media! Follow peers, competitors, partners. customers and trade/business associations and media, as well as industry/community hashtags (and by that I mean, check in on their activity and content everyday, don’t just click a button to follow a page!) This will allow you to very quickly identify trends, influences, popular (and unpopular) content styles and topics, and keep your finger on the pulse of activity and sentiment online.
2. Interact and engage in the community! Forget about your content and agenda for a while, and allow yourself five minutes a day to comment and share – get involved in the conversation and be genuine and authentic, give your opinion and expertise, and recognise others. Establish yourself as a key part of the online community, rather than someone purely trying to broadcast a promotional message.
3. Relax – speak like you would to people you’ve just met at a BBQ or dinner party. You’re not a corporate robot, so be human and personable. We do business with people not brands and you will get people warming to you a lot faster if you let them in and engage on their level.
4. Produce great content. Generally speaking, the more content you have the better, but with the caveat that it all needs to be fantastic content. So, instead of working hard to try and produce a post everyday, try to create three really strong posts per week to get started. Great content is: On a topic that people are searching for/have demonstrated interest in; Varied in style and type (ie video, photo, audio, carousel); and engaging in terms of the use of colour, font, emojis, subtitles, motion and audio.
There’s only one real way to know if your content is effective and that is by asking your audience and gauging their responses and ultimately, actions – so make sure you do this! It’s another great use of social media! Polls and surveys not only show a genuine interest in your audience and their preferences, but also give you invaluable insight for business and marketing development – and they in themselves, they also produce yet more great content!
So there you have it, just a topline view, but a couple of simple steps that could easily make a big difference in just half an hour a day. We will be delving into this further at our social media workshops in Bournemouth and Poole over the coming months, so please do let us know if you’d like to know more or join us. Email: sam@footstepcommunications.com
