As a Creative Marketing Firm, we realize that a lot of people don’t know what social media management is and what it consists of. A lot of times, people think that they are “social media experts” just because they have a big following on their personal profile, or because the last selfie they posted, wearing a bikini in Waikiki, earned them 5,000 likes. There is a difference between social media management professionals and someone who thinks they’re the expert. Here is a list of the top five things that makes having an experienced social media management business expert better than someone just posting to post.
Be on multiple Social Networks
The more social networks you can be on, the more people can see you and the more social presence you have online. Some networks bring more attention to your business than others. With each social network, there is different requirements in order to market your business successfully. A lot of people post the same things across channels but, there is actually a different method and strategy behind every social media channel. For example, what you’d post on LinkedIn would be different than if you were to post on Instagram or Pinterest.
Post throughout the Day
Everyone, around the world, has their own time zones that they dwell in. Posting frequently, throughout the day, will ensure that more people will see your content. Also, your content can spread a lot farther, to a much wider audience. To be effective, social media accounts each have a different frequency to posting. Social Media experts have tools to where they can study analytics, to see when the best times of day are for posting. There are ways to make postings very effective and reach the widest amount of people.
Post Specific Content
Content is a very important factor in Social Media Management. We use content to engage a reader’s interest, to help generate leads, to drive traffic to our website and to show people who we are and what we do. We all have a niche, so we purpose to post specific blogs with content related to our niche. This is very important. We also use “keywords” throughout the postings. These keywords are generated by a software tool that lets us know what the top searches are for that specific topic or business. We can use keywords to draw attention to your content as well as help your ranking in search engines, which in turn brings others to see what you are putting out there, online.
Include custom images in your Posts
This is a great way to boost engagement on a post. It has be proven that posts that include a custom image will get a ton more hits and get retweeted on twitter more. It will be a lot more productive than posts that don’t include a image. Have you heard the phrase, “a picture is worth a thousand words?” There is a reason that saying came about. It is true.
Be Consistent
Adopt a strategy and then be consistent with it. Posting consistently is the only thing that will put yourself out there to be seen and build your following. If you are inconsistent, you will just pick up some here or there. If you pick a strategy and stick with it consistently, you will get the results you are looking for. If you just do it a couple times, you will only see a small gain in following on that account. Consistency is key, across the board. Be consistent when you post.
In conclusion, everyone knows that a lot of businesses have their receptionist posting for them to save money. They feel because she has a big following on her own personal social media account(s) that he or she should be able to produce those same results. This will not produce the results you would think or hope for. Business is different than personal. It is easy to gain a following and a lot of “likes” on personal pictures and comments. As we stated above, If you have a cute baby picture or a nice looking lady in a bikini on vacation, everyone will like your pictures. It is a lot less likely to get someone to like a business posting unless it is intriguing, fascinating or enticing. You have to create interest to draw people to look at your posting or like it.
Hopefully, this list gave you a wider perspective of the time and knowledge involved in posting through social media business accounts. This list should make you want to add social media management to your “wish list” for 2016!