There are many different social media platforms available for users, from Facebook to Twitter and even sites like Pinterest. The first question many people have when they decide it’s time for their business to hop on board with social media is, “How do I get a ______ account?” Getting an account is the easy part, because most sites are FREE. It will cost you no money to create most social media accounts, but what it will cost is time.
Your social media accounts are not just going to run themselves. You must put for time and effort in creating, building and maintaining successful social media accounts. Let’s put social media in a real-world perspective. Think of your accounts as plants in your virtual garden, you must tend to these accounts and provide them with extra TLC (tender, love and care) to make sure they grow. Some believe that just having a social media pages is enough, they are completely wrong. Having an inactive page is just as bad as not having a page at all. The amount of success your social media pages have depends on the amount of time you put in.
Top 5 Time Consuming Factors of Social Media:
Promotion- Just like your social media platforms can’t run themselves, they also aren’t just going to promote themselves. You have to take the time out to promote your social media pages to your target audience on and offline. One way to promote online is through email blasters. Email blaster are emails sent from you to a mass list of email your have collected from those who use your services. Offline promotion includes designing signage to display within your establishment. The goal is to let your audience know you’re online and know where they can find you.
Creating Original Content- In social media marketing your content is king, meaning your content is one of the main driving forces of your social media success. You have to create and distribute relevant, engaging and beneficial content to your audience. You can share links and curated sources, but nothing is more connected to your business than original content. Creating content is time consuming. It takes time to understand what your audience wants and how you can give it to them. However, if done correctly your audience will take notice and see a benefit from connecting with you online.
Consistency- You must make sure that your social media pages are active, this means making sure that you are posting on a consistent basis. The best way to do this is by creating a schedule and sticking to it!
Trend Watching- Trends online are changing consistently, what’s “in” today may not be relevant in a two weeks. Social media users follow trends. You have to stay on top of the trends in order to keep and remain knowledgeable about what’s going on and how it may pertain to your target audience. To follow these trends you must be an active participant in social media conversation, this includes using different platforms, reading articles and keeping up with social media news. A social media manager should be on top of this and making sure your current strategies follows trends most relevant to your business.
Analytics- Analytics is the process of using data collected from your social media accounts and analyzing it to identify your past trends. For social media analytics is important to see what works and want doesn’t within your campaign. There are many different tools available to perform analytics. Sites such as Facebook have “Insights” tab available for you providing you will all the data from your page. Reviewing analytics isn’t a simple task you must be able to break down what the data presented to you means. It takes time to go over data and apply your findings to your current strategies, but it is very necessary to track success.
Social media is a great way to market your business, although it is time consuming the results are worth it. If you have questions regarding how you can get started with social media or improve your current accounts don’t hesitate to contact us today!
