- Consistently Deliver Content – Don’t fall into the trap of updating your businesses social media channels numerous times a day for a week and then forget about it for a month or two. Consistently update your social media channels with useful, engaging content that your target audience will be interested in.
- After you have used a hashtag, follow it up! When you have posted an update with a certain hashtag, how often do you conduct a search for that hashtag and engage with other business owners or individuals? It can be a great opportunity for exposure.
- Are you creating engaging content on your website? Whether it’s a blog, news article, photograph or something else, make sure you share interesting content on your social media channels. It works two ways; it’s interesting content and it acts as a means of driving traffic from social media to your website.
- Answer Question – Using Facebook and Twitter allows you, acting as your business page to comment or reply to updates left by others, this is a golden opportunity to gain exposure. If someone has posted an update which you can provide a useful response to, do it under your businesses social media account and you will enjoy a higher level of exposure.
- Hootsuite – Ever find that you’re having to check social media consistently every day and have to think up things to write about? Use scheduling software such as Hootsuite, plan some time and schedule your week, fortnight or month of social media updates in one sitting. You will then be able to get on with your business and check social media occasionally.
- Share and Retweet – Sharing and retweeting updates from individuals and other businesses will get your businesses social media account on their radar. It can be a great way to make someone aware of you and what you do.
- Do it well – If you’re going to have a social media presence for your business, make sure you dedicate a sufficient amount of time to it. Running a businesses social media account poorly can have negative effects, it may be the first time a potential customer comes into contact with your brand so make sure it’s a positive first impression. Examples of running a channel poorly include sloppy mistakes, grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, boring and repetitive updates.
- How much time do you have? Whether you have 20 minutes spare a week or 5 hours, you need to plan how to use this time effectively. If your time is very limited it can often be better to focus on one social media channel and run it very well instead of trying to have a presence on; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, the list goes on. As a business person you need to ensure that the time you dedicate to an exercise will reap some form of reward. Don’t try to be a social media Jack of all trades!
- When are people online? Targeting students? Don’t update at 8am on a Monday morning! Just an example but think about who your target audience is, when they’re online and when they’re most likely to be receptive to an update. Don’t just post an update at a time that is convenient for you, think about your customers!
- Analyse Your Updates – What has given you a lot of engagement in the past? What hasn’t worked so well? Look at your analytics and see what type of updates you can replicate in the future. By replicate I don’t mean copy and paste!
