Social media can be an effective way to build your brand and connect with your customers. It can also drain time and resources that could be better spent elsewhere.
So what are the secrets of digital marketers who are effectively managing social media?
This is one area of digital marketing where having a clear mindset, strategy, and time management plan will help you be effective.
- Choose Where You Spend Your Time Wisely
You probably don’t need to be on every single social network out there. In fact, being on every network can hinder your progress. Consider that if you put more time into one or two networks, those accounts are likely to be more successful than five accounts you barely spend any time on.
Who are your customers? How are you most likely to reach them? Instagram is great for industries that are best represented with photos, like travel, fashion, and food. They also heavily lean toward users in their twenties and early thirties.
Most people have a Facebook account, especially older consumers. Several industries, like tech, are heavily on Twitter. Know your audience and invest your time in the places they hang out. Learn the hashtags and know the types of posts that go into them. Also, learn what types of posts get the most engagement, and put your time toward making quality posts that best connect with your audience.
- Consider The Quality Of Your Posts
Your posts should be authentic, speak to your brand, and connect with your audience. If you’re posting just to be seen, your posts won’t hold as much value. Before you post, ask yourself about the value your posts are offering to your audience. Why would your ideal customer find this post useful? Or funny? Or interesting? In a broader sense, consider what kind of value your posts are trying to add to your customer’s life. Are you there to entertain them or inform them? Keep this in mind as a guide so you’ll know what to post about.
- Use a Scheduler
You don’t have time to check your social media all day long. That’s not effective. But you need to be posting regularly. You can use a scheduler tool to handle this for you, like Buffer or Hootsuite. You can put an hour into scheduling posts, instead of signing on multiple times a day to do this in a scattered manner. These tools will also give you another tool for tracking your analytics.
- Take the Time to Evaluate Your Stats
You won’t know if your time is being used effectively unless you review your analytics. Track how many new followers you gained this week (or this month). Look at your numbers for engagement, meaning you should look at your likes, mentions, and comments. What posts gained the most attention for you? What was it about that post your audience connected to? Can you create content with a similar value to continue growing your account? Review what your analytics tell you and use that information to build a stronger and more effective social media management plan moving forward.