What is the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do before you go to bed? If your answer was check your phone, you are like most people in America. According the the New York Times, the average person spends 50 minutes a day on Facebook. Those 50 minutes are a chance for you to create awareness about your business, lead people to your website and promote the culture and personality of your company – all through social media marketing.
Understand your audience
Knowing which social media platform your audience is actively using will help you successfully reach them and allow them to engage with your company. For example, younger audiences are using Snapchat while older audiences are using Facebook.
You’ll also want to choose the platform that works well with the content you have available. Does your business lend well to pictures that will capture the attention of a potential customer? Instagram is the answer! Looking to build a community around your business through a social media site? Facebook is perfect! Want to showcase your company’s personality with short messages? Twitter is the place! Once you decide which platforms will best reach your audience, it’s time to develop a plan.
Create a Content Calendar
Develop a plan for the content of your posts and then create a content calendar. Having a plan for what you will post and how often you will post will create consistency. This will also make it easier for more than one person in your company to manage the account if need be. Organization is key when managing several different accounts.
Schedule Your Posts
It is easier to plan your posts at the beginning of the week with a social media manager app. Buffer is one of my favorites because it allows you to schedule for different social media accounts and see analytics afterward. This can show you which posts your audience is engaging with the most. You can then create more posts like that. This site is particularly good for Twitter because it allows you to easily repost a tweet. Tweets have a very short lifespan, so you can duplicate a successful post more often than you would on other social media sites. You can also schedule Facebook posts directly on your profile.
Hashtags
Adding hashtags to your posts increases SEO and encourages more engagement. They allow users who aren’t following you to find you more easily. Before using a hashtag, check out which hashtags leaders in your industry are using. You can also search a hashtag before using it to make sure the other accounts using that hashtag are appropriate for your business.
Have Fun!
If you have fun with your social media, so will your audience! When creating a post, think about what you would want to see if you were a part of the intended audience. Get creative with your posts and showcase why your business is one people should support.
Now that you know how to get started with your social media marketing, check out how to increase engagement on Twitter!