Staying active on your social media business accounts can drastically increase the awareness of your brand and drive customers to both your website and physical location. This increased traffic can put you into direct communication with your customers, so you can learn more about what they want and need. Increased traffic can also lead to a bump in sales.
These benefits are substantial, but the work necessary to reach these milestones is time-consuming. Running a business is also time-consuming. While managing your social media business accounts is necessary, carving out the time in your already jam-packed schedule may not be feasible. Or is it feasible? Here are some tips to save time while making the most of your social media business accounts.
Figure Out The Goals of Your Social Media Business Accounts
Goal setting is not fun or glamorous, but it’s a necessary first step. The only way you can gauge the success of your efforts is to define success at the start. Setting specific goals also enables you to reverse engineer your plan. When you identify what you wish to achieve, you can then figure out how to achieve it.
The best way to set yourself up for success is to craft quality goals. Quality goals have three components:
- Clearly defined result/achievement
- Steps to reach the goal
- Due date
Establishing a due date prevents things from getting out of hand. Due dates are a natural ending point at which time you can assess the results. You either reached your goal, which is great. On to the next mountain! Or you didn’t, which means you need to reevaluate. Was your goal too ambitious? Did you not plan accordingly? Or maybe you needed a bit more time. Whatever the case may be, end dates are a time to stand back, learn from what just happened, and figure out your next move.
Talk to Your Audience
Make sure your communication is on-point, directed towards the appropriate audience and aligned with your goals. For example, if your goal is to establish your brand as an industry expert then you need to get out there and engage with media and influencers in your industry. If you want to increase leads, then direct your communication toward prospective clients. If your goal is to increase repeat sales, then talk to your current customers.
Targeting your social media posts can help you reach the right people. Facebook enables business account admins to target posts based on factors like age, gender, location, relationship status, interests and so on.
A great message sent to the wrong group will not deliver results. Your communication will only be effective if it is directed to the correct audience.
Use What You Already Have
Constantly coming up with info to post about on your social media business accounts can be trying. In addition to posting new content, repurpose existing content and repost old blog posts to maintain a full and active posting schedule. All of your followers don’t see every post, so sharing the same content will increase the odds of more users seeing the info. Sometimes users may not engage with a post or click on a link the first time they see it, but they may follow through on subsequent times.
Make What is Old New Again
When sharing the same content multiple times make sure to keep things new and interesting. For instance, I fully intend to share this post on my social media business accounts multiple times. Each time I’ll use different content and different photos so my feed doesn’t look repetitive.
I’ll use my brand hashtag each time, but I’ll swap out the other hashtags, so each post will turn up in different searches. After posting, I’ll wait a few weeks and maybe even months before posting again. If I get a really positive response to this blog post (i.e. tons of engagement on social and lots of traffic directed back to my site) I may continue to promote this blog post on my social media accounts indefinitely.
Feature Visuals
Photos, memes, videos, and infographics will encourage users to stop scrolling and check out your post. Users are more likely to scroll right past text-only posts, particularly lengthy text posts. Make the best use of your time by creating visually appealing posts that are more likely to engage users. A good rule is to always or at least most of the time, include an image when posting to your social media business accounts. Emojis are another way to add some visual interest to your posts.
Be Upfront
Fill in all of the fields in the bio section of your social media business accounts. This may seem redundant, but this may be the first introduction a user has with your brand, so make it good. Information across all of your social media business accounts and your website should be consistent. Use the same brand voice and information.
Users will typically check a bio page to learn more, especially if they have specific questions in mind. Filling everything out increases the odds of helping users find the info they need while also making your business page look professional and well put together.
SEO Impact
The impact of your social media business account on SEO is up for debate. At different points in time leading search engines have indicated social media business accounts do influence search engine ranking. While at other times, the same search engines have indicated there is no connection. Search engines continue to flip flop on the impact of social media on website ranking and there is no definitive answer.
A complete social media business account profile will help serve your customers and followers. Providing value and helping users is important. If your social media business account also helps boost your SEO that’s great, but don’t count on it.
Turn On Your Notifications
Adjust the settings on your computer and possibly even your phone, so you receive notifications from your social media business accounts. The notifications will alert you when there is activity, so you don’t need to constantly check in. You’ll be in the know when something happens, so you can respond quickly while still taking care of other tasks and responsibilities.
Put Your Users to Work
Make it easy for visitors to your site to find your social media business accounts and share your content. Include share buttons on your blog so users can easily post to their accounts and increase your brand’s visibility on social media. Another option is to feature your social media business account feed on your site. This enables visitors to your site to see your latest posts and easily navigate to your social media pages.
Maximize Your Social Media Business Accounts
Routinely posting to your social media accounts can do great things for your marketing, but can also be a serious drain on your time. Employing these tips can help you maximize your efforts and your time. Reach out if you need help creating content for your blog or your social media business accounts. I can take on these writing tasks so you can work on your business.
