SOCIAL MEDIA: Making the most of you online presence
In my last column, I covered some tips for managing your time on social media better. Before heading off, here are a few more things to keep in mind to ensure you are more efficient with your participation and continue to work toward your goals.
I have covered some of these before but they are worth repeating as they are all essential to your success on social media.
Have a plan for your social media
What do you want out of your time on social media?
Are you going to use social media as an extension of your blog and share updates on your content? Do you want to meet new business connections? Are you trying to create a greater sense of community? Are you trying to establish your business as a go-to resource on a specific topic?
Social media success takes time
Unless you already have a well-established online presence, you may find that your foray into social media may not produce the instant results you’re hoping for. The key is to start making connections, getting to other influential people and working toward serving your audience.
Analyse your competition
While you want to set yourself apart from everyone else making noise on social media, there is no need to completely reinvent the wheel. Watch what your competition does on social media. Who is doing well and why are they doing well? These are important things to know.
Be careful with your social media management team
Hiring a team or individual to help you with your social media campaign is a good idea, but you need to make sure a consistent and appropriate message is shared. Set up well-defined guidelines to make sure everyone is on the same page.
Put some effort into your profiles
Always fill out a profile completely and think about what your potential follower wants to know about you. Use an appropriately professional image and update details as needed.
Let everyone know you’re on social media
Add “follow me” buttons to your website, let your email subscribers know that there is a new way to connect with you and include the information in your advertisements. Publicising your participation is an important step in growing your following.
Keep the “social” in social media
While people love to hear from businesses and receive their updates, the focus should always be on the social. Keep your own focus on sharing helpful information, being helpful and avoiding constant blatant self-promotion.
Share readily
Building on the social aspect of social media, readily share the other people’s content. Sharing is a great way to meet new people and to be seen as a hub of helpful information in your topic area.
Respond to those that engage you
Where possible, respond to comments and engage your audience further. There’s nothing worse than a business page that shows no real interaction by the owner.
Above all, keep in mind that you are working and growing a business. You still need to develop products, grow your mailing list and sell your products. Social media is a great way to increase your exposure and connect more meaningfully with your followers, and it should be a complement to your marketing activities rather than replacing them. Stay steady and focused and you’ll see the benefits of your participation.
BREAKING NEWS
Facebook News Feed Flags Hoaxes: This update reduces the distribution of posts that people have reported as hoaxes and adds an annotation to posts to warn others on Facebook.
They also announced the introduction of Conversion Lift to help marketers better understand the impact of Facebook ads by allowing them to accurately determine the additional business driven by Facebook ads and make future marketing decisions based on this information.
Twitter has been busy introducing new features over the last couple of weeks! At the end of January, they Rolled Out Group Direct Messages and Mobile Video and announced that “everyone will soon be able to seamlessly capture, edit and share videos right from the Twitter app.”
With Group Direct Messages you can now tweet with a group of up to 20 people, privately.
The group function lets you start conversations with any of your followers and they don’t all need to follow one another in order to chat. You can create a group in just a few taps and when you’re added to a group, you’ll get a notification.
They also launched Tweet translation with Bing Translator so you can read Tweets in multiple languages!
The week before they introduced a new feature to your home feed—a recap of top tweets you might have missed from accounts you follow. Twitter Recaps Tweets You Might Have Missed.
Pinterest Search Gets Smarter: If you do a lot of searching on Pinterest, you may already have noticed the results you’re seeing are getting better. They now state that “Everybody’s results should feel a lot closer to what they’re looking for.”
-- Find Kim at www.morrisonsocialmedia.co.uk
