Social media allows you to reach and connect with a wide audience at almost no cost. Figuring out how to best use social media for your business can completely alter the way you interact with your audience. Many marketers, however, are inefficient at using social media. Marketers spend more time than they should figuring out their strategy while receiving little return on their investment. So how can marketers spend less time on their social media strategies while receiving a higher ROI?
1. Know what you want
Just like with any well thought-out strategy, you must have an idea in mind of what you hope to achieve before you begin to execute your strategy. This is important because it defines how you will approach your strategy and what you will measure as success. When it comes to social media, there are several different goals you could be trying to accomplish. If you’re solely trying to gain followers, begin by following other people first, and then consistently post content to build interest. If you’re trying to form strong relationships, create two-way conversations with your audience. Whatever your intentions for social media may be, stick to following one goal and remembering it when executing your strategy.
2. Maintain a consistent calendar
One of the most important things to remember about social media is to consistently post and not ignore your followers. People click the “follow” button for a reason and that is because they want to receive more content from your account and engage in conversations. By ignoring social media and not posting often, your followers will quickly diminish because they will see no return from their own investment of liking your page. In order to maintain consistency in your postings, create a social media calendar to remind yourself of what and when to post. This moves the pressure off of yourself to remember to post and allows you to constantly update your social media profiles.
3. Plan it all at once
Studies have shown that we’re more efficient when we work on one task for a longer period of time rather than multiple tasks for shorter intervals. Knowing this, it’s best to plan your social media strategy for a longer period of time (i.e. week or month) rather than at the beginning of each day. To start, you should brainstorm all of the ideas for posts that you have. Decide which ones are worth sharing and schedule those on your calendar. One thing to remember about social media is that you should not solely be posting your own content. Follow the 80/20 rule: 80% of the content you post should be someone else’s while only 20% is your own original content. It’s also important to be conscious of how much wasted time you can spend on social media by constantly checking it throughout the day. Designate a specific block of time each day to check your social media accounts so you’re not tempted to get distracted at other times.
Social media is meant to be fun and productive – not boring and inefficient. Be conscious of what you can achieve with social media and keep that in mind as you develop your strategy. Stay organized with a calendar and plan out your strategy in one sitting so it doesn’t distract you from other work. At the end of the day, have fun with social media, and you’ll see huge rewards from your strategy!