How to create a stellar social media strategy to convince and convert your customers
You know that your customers are on social media. You know that your social media accounts and profiles are great ways to interact with your customers. But what you don’t know is how to create a stellar social media strategy – and that’s okay.
Today there are more social media than ever before. You have Facebook, which now owns Instagram. There’s Twitter, which is still hanging on. Pinterest is powerful for certain demographics. YouTube seems like black magic: it’s powerful but you can lose yourself to it. SnapChat is great, if you could just figure it out. And there are others creeping up. How do you make sure that you are making the right decisions and getting the most our of your time on these platforms?
Social Media Strategy Step Number One:
Don’t try to be on every platform.
You’re customers aren’t there, and neither should you be.
When you get to know your customers, you’ll find that there are a few social media profiles that they love and use everyday. This is generally based on demo and psychographics. Women tend to use Pinterest more than men. Younger, millennial aged users tend to spend more time on Instagram. I personally use Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. But for my business, I focus my efforts on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Those are ranked in order of importance too.
Social Media Strategy Step Number Two
Stop Guessing. Start Researching.
Throwing posts out there and hoping people will engage with them is wasting time, and disrespecting your current followers.
This is a two pronged step – even if you don’t yet have social media accounts. Rather than jumping in and posting some photos, quotes, or links to content that you think your target followers will like, invest a little bit of time to find out what they actually do like.
If post after post is not interesting, informative or entertaining for your audience they will unfollow you. This step is all about respecting their time and attention.
The first thing to do here, is to go back through the content that you have created, and take stock of what people liked. Look at the engagement on your social media posts and find out which got the highest likes, comments, and shares. On your blog, find out which posts people visited, which ones they spent the most time on, shared, or emailed to a friend. Even your print materials can give you insight. At the last three business shows or promotional events you attended, which content did people ask for, take home with them, or stop to read?
Next, repeat what you just did, with your competition’s content. This isn’t espionage and you aren’t breaking any rules in doing so. They’ll do the same to you if they’re smart. If you don’t have any direct competitors in your market (lucky you) look at other markets. Find a different location in the US where there is an indirect competitor, or find another product or service who shares your target audience.
Social Media Strategy Step 3:
You have all of the Ingredients, but you’re missing the recipe.
It’s time to create your plan: your posting schedule
How often will you post? And how many times will you share one piece of content? There are experts who give different recommendations about how frequently you should be posting, paying to boost posts or sponsor ads, and how many times you should publish a piece of content.
The McKeating Solutions answer: It Depends.
I’m not going to give you some pie in the sky recommendation that is built for someone like me, who has the time to create and schedule a plethora of posts. That’s why people hire me. The right formula for you depends on your bandwidth. How much time do you have to create content, and then create posts on social media.
LinkedIn: 2-3 times per week as long as you have relevant content to share
Facebook: Daily
Instagram: Daily – you can link your this to your Facebook account to make it easier and save time.
Pinterest: 2-3 times per week
Twitter: 2-3 times per day (using a scheduler makes this easier).
Some tips:
- Find older content and share it again. Recycling content, as long as its still relevant is a great way to save time.
- Use a scheduling tool and create posts that are scheduled to go live throughout the week or month. Leave room for some spontaneous content though so you don’t over tax yourself and can be current.
- Find free and easy tools to create visual content like photos, memes, video. There are loads of them out there. Canva is one of my go to’s.
- Find and share posts from like businesses, experts in your field
- Find and share some funny memes and photos that are already floating around – just be sure to give credit to the creator when you can.