Handle Your Business Social Media Accounts Like A Pro
If you ask the average social media person whether your business should participate in social media, you’ll get a resounding Yes!
There are so many opportunities when you consider social media, but that doesn’t mean social media is a good choice for you.
Social media requires an investment, not just time, but money, training, etc.It seems simple enough to post updates on Facebook and Twitter, but for you to get the results from social media you want/need, simple updates are not going to work.
What Does It Take to Be Successful On My Own With Business Social Media?
Assuming you are going to handle only the accounts for your business, let’s take a look at what you’ll need:
- Plan- what do you expect to get out of social media activities and how will you achieve these results?
- Website- a place to send visitors to, where you can turn them into sales for your business.
- Content- business social media requires a lot of content- the things you are going to say to your followers. Ideally this includes photos and graphics you own, links to your website and other places online your fans will enjoy, sharing funny memes and text updates designed to get fans to take action.
- Profiles- your social media profiles should be set up to include all of your business information. The profiles should look professional and include beautiful images, descriptions of your company and links to your site.
- Training & Education- The biggest part of social media you’ll need to incorporate is learning how to put together your plan, write your updates and provide value to your followers before promoting yourself. That might even seem simple enough, but then you’ll need continuous news on social media, because it changes all of the time.
- A lot of time is needed to fully understand your audience on each social media site, how to use each site and then get results from them. While all of them are there to allow you to share with fans, how you do this, how often you do it, what you share, and in what format is different on each.
How To Handle Social On Your Own Business Social Media
Training- Coaching- Reading
I suggest finding a training program that teaches you how to use each platform effectively. I don’t offer these courses but you can find them by respectable people like Mari Smith and
. Or you can hire a coach, I do offer coaching and if you are interested feel free to contact me and let me know.You could also try a social media marketing book- perhaps one of the Dummies books, as they are written by experts. Coaching is best for those who want to ask questions, get on going support and have their accounts and content professionally reviewed.
Social Media Content
Assuming you have a plan set up, you’ll need regular content for all of the platforms you visit. I recommend using the following sites if you sell directly to consumers:
And these sites if you sell to other businesses:
- Google+
The content you post needs to resonate with your followers, and based on the platform you’ll have to include in your plan how often you’ll post. Here is what I recommend:
- Facebook- 2x a day or more
- Twitter- several times a day- this can be automated with tools
- Pinterest- check once a day and repin several pins before sharing your own
- Linkedin- 1x per day
- Google+ – multiple times per day, spaced out, should be interesting content for general public- occasional promotions
Management & Alerts
Each of the sites should be checked multiple times per day, or you can receive alerts if one of them gets a comment, message, pin, etc. To save yourself time I would set up alerts.
Continuing Education
Regardless of the training program or book you purchase to help you get started, there will inevitably be updates made since publication. The best way to stay on top of social media changes is through Social Media Examiner- they offer a weekly blog post on Fridays discussing the updates and changes made.
Promotions
Getting your promotions to work is probably going to be the hardest part of social media. We are all eager to push our websites, blog posts, and sales, but our fans aren’t nearly as eager.There are so many approaches you can follow here, but the easiest is a 90/10 ratio. Share what your followers want to see 90% of the time and promote yourself the other 10%.How you post your promotions is going to matter- and you’ll have to test what works best with your fans. The best thing you can do is build relationships with as many of your fans as possible.Get to know them and let them get to know you and your business, when you do this they like you more and are more acceptable to your promotions.
Summary
It can be a bit overwhelming to take on your social media accounts, but it is a lot of fun, too. Take your time, stay active, and build relationships with everyone you come across. If it helps start a routine for each morning and afternoon. If you have questions, feel free to ask. Comment below!
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One of the important role of social media for business and even for personal use is Building relationships. Make them feel important and just like a close friend that you’re always willing to give help and provide info that are useful to them.
Exactly, building relationships is very important, but it can be time consuming and difficult to do with thousands of followers. Social media managers need to make themselves available, and give to the community they represent.
Mary