It’s most likely that you already use social media to promote your business, but you may not be seeing the results you want – or it might be taking a lot of time out of your daily schedule in order to keep on top of the endless stream of interactions. Maximising your social media schedule is relatively easy once you know the basics around how to create compelling content, finding out which platforms are most suitable for engaging with your customer base, and when the most effective time is to get your posts seen. Once you have this information under your belt, you’ll see the benefit of being more organised, working smarter with existing time spent on social media, and freeing up more time for other activities to help grow your business.
1. Use the right platforms
With social media being almost central to our daily lives, we often spend much more time in the digital world than we intend. It’s easy to get carried away with checking social media almost constantly and not always using individual social media platforms to their full potential. The main social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, with LinkedIn being next in the social pecking order, particularly if you’re looking for B2B customers or clients. But to utilise these social media platforms efficiently, you need to work out which of these platforms your ideal customer uses most frequently. You can do this by trial and error – seeing which platforms get the most interactions, and failing that, by also using targeted ads to make sure your content makes its way to the right people.
2. Create compelling content
It’s important that the content you create for your social media schedule is either entertaining or useful to the reader. It’s easy to list products or services you offer but to really engage your potential customers (or retain existing ones), you need to catch their eye, stand out from the crowd and show some personality. Behind-the-scenes snippets and interviews from behind the brand are a perfect way to showcase this, as are testimonials that highlight any good work you’ve done from happy customers.
3. Use hashtags #
If you’re a regular Twitter or Instagram user, you’ll probably have noticed an increased use of hashtags over the past few years. Hashtags (#) are words or phrases that accompany content that describe the type of content included, for example #BusinessMarketing, or words or phrases that describe a particular social media event, for example #WednesdayWisdom. Any time you post content on these platforms remember to include key words as hashtags so that if any user of that platform searches for those keywords, your posts can be easily found. The amount of posts containing hashtags has increased as more people are realising the power of using a hashtag as it makes you more accessible and visible online. Event hashtags such as #MondayMotivation, #WednesdayWisdom and #ThrowbackThursday are also an opportunity for joining in with online social conversation, which can increase interactions and could even send your content viral!
4. Use video
Video continues to be one of the most under-utilised but fastest-growing content streams. Written content and amazing images to represent your brand or business will get you so far but video is fast becoming the most popular way for people to view content online. This includes those in the workplace themselves because captioned videos are easy to watch in any setting, are quick to the point, and need little concentration from the viewer. Again, in collaboration with written content, video of behind the scenes shows your brand personality and builds a trustworthy relationship with your clientele. An easy way to quickly create video and share it with your followers is using Facebook and Instagram Stories which allow you to record and share live or pre-recorded content within a matter of moments. And because Instagram and Facebook are linked you can easily share one video to both platforms at the same time.
5. Timing is key
So now you’ve decided which are the best platforms to use, curated your content in an entertaining way with some relevant hashtags, and even thrown in a video or two to keep it interesting. Now you’re ready to post your content, but do you know when the best time to upload is? Does it even matter? In fact, you can have the most interesting and engaging content but if you don’t post it at the ideal time, it may never get seen by the right people. So timing is key. There are no hard and fast rules on when to post to each social media platform, only guidelines on what are the busiest times, but what works for one person may not work for another. For example, if you have a new promotion targeting mums then your target clients are likely to be online in the early mornings but they’re unlikely to be online to see your content during school pick up at 3pm.
Now you have all the tools to help you create a social media plan that will hopefully engage and excite potential clients and customers, or retain an existing one. Remember to consider where you post, when you post, and most importantly what you post, so you can work smarter and maximise your social media schedule.
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