Social Media New Year's Resolution

31
Dec 2012

As the new year approaches we all seek out our new year’s resolutions.  Whether its getting in the gym more often or giving up junk food, we all have one.  However most of the time our new year’s resolutions last for three weeks before they slowly fall by the wayside.  This can happen for a number of reasons.  We are just not that dedicated, we get bored, or we lack a clear plan of how to carry out that resolution.

This new year’s take a look at your social media strategy and work on improving that as a 2013 resolution.  So if anything, you can come out of this with a clear strategy to put social media to work for you.

Social media strategies can be lacking for many reasons, but the most common reason businesses neglect this marketing powerhouse is because “they don’t have enough time.”  Social media always seems to find its way on our priority lists but its that one thing that never quite gets checked off.  It’s always “Ill try it tomorrow” or “I’ve been meaning to get that” and so on.  Well starting January 1, its time to ramp up the social media strategy.  With these simple suggestions you may find that social media is easier than you think.

Content

Its hard to figure out what to post as content.  Good content is the foundation for all successful social media campaigns.  Any business who does social media well has a good content strategy.  And a good way to think about what sort of content to put up is to think about social media in terms of story telling – because that in essence what it is.  Good content tells a story.  It plays on the emotions of the readers, allowing them to develop a connection to what they are reading.  So when thinking of what to post, take a step back and put yourself in your readers shoes.  Ask yourself, “What would I want to read about my business?”  Think about a way to not just tell your audience what you want them to hear, but to really provide them a story behind the information.

Frequency

When starting a social media campaign, realize that you don’t have to devote every second of the day to it.  Sure all the big company pages will be updated by the minute, but they have entire divisions dedicated to doing so.  Start small first and then later watch it grow.  Depending on which sites you’re on, you more than likely should update them daily.  However not EVERY sites need this.  Figure out what others are doing and don’t be afraid to imitate.  For example, Facebook and Twitter require the most amount of maintenance.  People are on them all day and thus updating these sites daily is import.  When you get to sites like LinkedIn and YouTube, there is not as much constant activity.  Try to update at least once a day for sites like Facebook and Twitter and the others may require 2-3 times per week.

Time

Believe it or not, you can do social media in 15 minutes a day.  Many think that to do a good job, you have to spend hours and hours.  If you’re doing social media on your own then this is not the case.  If you’re contracting it out to an agency then you can expect that they are spending hours and hours a day.  But a 15 min per day schedule is very doable, and its very simple.  It looks like this:

Spend 5 minutes posting content – Whatever you want to convey to your audience, it shouldn’t take you more than 5 minutes to do.  Your audience isn’t going to spend a great deal of time reading lengthy posts thus you shouldn’t spend a great deal of time creating them.

Spend 5 minutes managing the page – This means respond to comments, and interact with your current followers. You don’t have to go overboard, however just make your presence be known.

Spend 5 minutes networking with other pages/people – Simply interact with other people that are outside of your following.  Spend time finding new people/pages to follow or spend time contributing to other discussions.  This is what will help you grow your following.

Social media can be as simple as that.  So if you’re trying to handle this in house, this should give you a starting point for the new year.

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