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Why do you want to be on social media? If you want to get started on social media, then the first action you must take is really understanding why you think you should take your business onto social media. What will your purpose be? What platforms will you use? Who will your target audience be? These are just some of the key questions you should begin with and research.
Checking your competitor’s social media presence and how they operate is also another method to begin your research. You do not and should not copy or try to replicate anything your competitors are doing. You are your own unique business and standing out in amongst the crowd is what separates you from everyone else.
Researching and comparing your competitor’s social media is a good starting point. However, you should never copy what everyone else is doing. What are your competitors not doing? Are there social media platforms they are not on? Is there a similar posting or schedule most of the competitors are all following? Take all this information in and begin to think what you could do differently for your business.
How are you currently getting new customers in? If you have contact with your current customers, you could also ask what they would like to see on social media. Also, you could ask what social media platforms they are currently using. If your present customers are on a specific social media platform it is likely there is a similar audience who may also be interested in your business on there too.
After conducting your research and coming to a decision on what social media platforms you want to use, stick to them. Do not start posting on two or three and at the end of the week only start to stick with one. If you want to try a few different socials out and eventually use only one, this is perfectly fine to do but give all the social channels you use a chance for at least a month or two.
Be sure you want to use social media and be aware of the time strain it can potentially take up of each day. Using social media can take up large parts of your day so make sure you have the time to stay committed and on top of the work you plan to do.
Set yourself some objectives after you have chosen your social media platforms. This can be a certain number of likes, follows, interactions or page clicks. Having something to aim towards will show you how each social media platform is worth your time. Where your posts are reaching the most people or getting the most interactions can determine where you want to focus more of your time on.
Understand your audiences needs. After the first week or two assess what styles of posts have been getting the most attention. You can then try them out again the following week. If it seems to go well a second time around don’t get overly confident with recycling the same content. Trends and engagements can constantly change, so try to keep your posts relevant to your business but perhaps try out new information or different styles of posts.
Scheduling your content will help massively when keeping your social posts consistent throughout the week. This will also be time efficient and save you logging on to each social media platform and typing up a new post every day for each social media platform. Plan your week ahead with the posts you want to put out and where and when you plan to do it. Have a strategy for each week or month. Figure out what you want to achieve and how you are going to meet those achievements.
Don’t be put off about not receiving a lot of interaction on your socials at first, building up a big following and recognition on social media can take time. Alerting current or past customers about your social media launch and asking them to like and share your pages can help begin some interaction.
Linking your profile and sharing with everyone is a useful tactic to reach as many new customers as possible. You never know who might see your posts on your socials. Therefore, it is important that potential customers know where to find you.
Uniqueness is vital when posting on social media. Generic posting is fine and for the most part will take up the bulk of the promotion of your business on your socials. Every week you should try and have a unique post. Alternatively, think of a post that you feel will draw in more attention to your business’s pages.
Engage with you customers. Ask your current customers what they would like to see more or less of. This will help narrow down what posts attracted them and you can ask what they specifically liked about your socials and why they chose your business. If you are getting weekly customer business or enquiries from your social media, then you can ask where they found you and what specific post it was.
Trends and relevant news are a great method to keep your content fresh, not every single day but perhaps once or twice a week. Seeing what news is trending that is relevant to your business could be shared on your socials with a comment on how you feel on the matter. Trending topics about the industry your company is in could also be discussed on your socials and using relative hashtags and other key words or phrases could attract more people who are searching to trending topics or news.
You want your business to be known for responding to all their customers whether it is for good or bad. Trading customers complaints efficiently is very important for new or returning customers. You want the customer to know that you care about their issue and fixing it is a priority. Showing commitment to your customers issues will keep their commitment to your business.
Providing a benefit is a simple but effective way to engage with your customers on social media. Asking customers to like and share your business for something small in return can just be enough to make them return or even quote your business to someone else.
Providing Q&A services either on your social media posts or on your social media messaging systems is another way you can interact with customers. Responding to messages quickly shows great commitment and will leave customers satisfied with your services. In turn, this can lead to good reviews and customers returning.
Made in Scotland Digital Marketing Agency
If any of the points above can be applied to your business, you can always outsource to us here at Made in Scotland. Running social media is a big responsibility and can be time restricting. You always want your company to be advertised and managed as professionally as possible. We are always on the lookout for new clients and would love to take on your business. So if you want to pass over the responsibility of your social media, make sure to get in touch.
