If you’re in business, you simply can’t ignore social media if you’re looking to roll out a successful marketing strategy. And for those businesses that do it well, social media can provide a direct link to new customers and keep your existing ones engaged.
But if you’re new to the territory and you have a small team, it can be a bit overwhelming and difficult to know where to start. The key is to keep it manageable by taking it one step at a time.
Scan the environment
The best first step is to look around your industry on social media. Check out what others are doing, how many followers they have, how engaged they are, the kind of content they post and how regularly they post it, and the look and feel of the presentation.
Think about your goals
Next, think about what you’d ultimately like to achieve through social media—improve your profiling, engage with your existing customers, branch into new potential customer circles?
Resources
Also consider how much time you have to manage social media—both in terms of content creation and engagement with your followers. Remember, social media wheels spin 24/7 so you need to be prepared to give it some after-hours attention at times.
Make a plan
Your plan doesn’t need to be long and complicated, but you should have one that sums up what you’re trying to achieve, how you plan to achieve it, and some practical things you can roll out to get started. If you have limited resources, you may want to stick to one platform rather than trying to spread yourself too thinly across many.
Develop a content plan
A content plan should be a practical guide for your social media content—you may like to do it week-by-week or month-by-month. Generally, try to follow the rule of thirds in relation to the content you post. One third of your content should promote your own business, one third should be sourced from your sector—stories and articles or videos that are of interest to your followers, and one third should be engagement based, so sharing things posted by people in your network or engaging with their content. Essentially, this means showing the human side to your business through dialogue.
Other important things to consider in your content plan are things that are trending across your industry. If there are special days in the annual calendar, get on board and use a strategic hashtag to be part of a larger movement.
Take beautiful images
Everyone with a phone is a photographer, but experiment with yours and learn how to take great pics of people in action, of your branding and even selfies. Better still, get really familiar with your filters so you can bump up the level of special on everyday scenes. And consider posting a quick video to bring an even more dynamic and personalised level to what you share.
Don’t be afraid to dip your toe in the water and have a go at a social media strategy for your business—call your PaySmart Business Development Manager to pick their brains for ideas and tips.
