In a world of quick wins and fast tips, one thing that often gets overlooked in all of the detail is a more general approach to social media for businesses and entrepreneurs.
So I thought I would share 3 of the best building blocks needed to get the most from your brands social media, today, tomorrow and long into the future, regardless of trends or hype.
COMMIT
Make a commitment to social media, then make a commitment to making a commitment to social media.
It’s hard to grow an audience and create consistently great content. However, all too often brands give up on social media after just a few months, because they throw themselves into it with gusto, then lose momentum and then interest…
It’s thought to take between 8-12 months to really get the hang of social, in that time you need to not only figure out what resonates with your audience, but also what works for your brand and how to maximise your presence across platforms.
It all starts with planning. Create a social media strategy and write it down in order to hold your business accountable. Include your brands company mission statement, social goals and content plan. A great foundation to build on.
LISTEN THEN PROMOTE
There seems to be a trend for brands on social media to push out lots of content, but entirely miss the gold mine that is the people who follow them.
Your customers are the best source of inspiration for content, by simply looking at their frequently asked questions, or what people are asking on social media, you have a wealth of content inspiration.
Then once they share with you, LISTEN TO THEM, and utilise their insights and maximise them, create content in line with what they are showing you they want/need.
If you’re stuck on what to post, look to your customers first for ideas before anything else.
MAXIMISE YOUR CONTENT
You’ve taken the time to create the content, so why waste opportunities? Instead, you must become a master of your content.
It’s easy to forget that it’s not always necessary to continuously send out brand new content to be successful. From everything I’ve seen, the more you can repurpose and make your content feel fresh in a variety of ways the less content you’ll actually have to put out and the more success you’ll have. Seems simple doesn’t it? And it can be!
Create sharable graphics that can be dotted throughout your content, making it easy for readers to share in an expressive and engaging way, rather than simply sharing a link. Video content can do the same thing, it’s easy to share, easy to engage with, easy to reuse.
Every time you create content, also create 2-3 other pieces of shareable content to accompany it. That way if the link doesn’t resonate then the video might. Or if the video falls short, maybe it makes for good Instagram Stories.