5 Tips to Improve Your Social Media Strategy

You’ve probably seen articles about social media fails: Someone posts to the wrong account; a nationally-known company goes on a seemingly drunken rant during a national sports event (turns out, though, that it was a stunt!—some say it’s brilliant; others still don’t believe it was planned); or a business accidentally copies and pastes a pornographic image as a response to a customer complaint. All this considered, you, as a small business owner, probably feel pretty confident that you won’t commit a gaffe of this caliber any time soon. Who could be so careless, after all? But that doesn’t mean that you’re in the clear. You might be trying to grow your audience and engagement, but what if you’re just not seeing the results you want? What if you’re putting in the time and effort, and yet every post falls flat? Worse, what if you’re accused of spamming or being bothersome?

Well, this means that you could be making some mistakes of your own. While you’re almost certainly not in the same boat as those hard-hitting brands mentioned above, your small business needs to act like a big player to get ahead in the social media world. In this post, we’ll cover a few things you can do to improve your social media strategy—by tackling common mistakes head-on.

1. Stop posting at weird times. Are you tweeting late into the night or before people have gone to work in the morning? Chances are that you’re not getting the audience you want… because they’re sleeping. Are you posting to LinkedIn during normal work hours? Your post is going to be looked over—most professionals don’t go on LinkedIn until after work hours! Meanwhile, Facebook fans are active in the morning and afternoon, while Pinterest users tend to be night owls.

For more information on the best and worst times to post on social media, check out the link below, and use it as a guide so that you can easily start to reach more fans: Best and Worst Times to Post to Social Media

2. Please don’t try to leech attention from other campaigns and companies. There is an undeniable vitriol reserved for companies that try to do this. They’ll often take a trending hashtag and put it in a tweet that has nothing to do with that topic, which puts their post directly in the middle of a trending conversation. It’s pretty much like when you’re having fun with a group of friends, and suddenly some random person comes up and says something like “Did you guys know I’m a DJ? No one cares. In fact, it’s just plain rude. So if you’re trying to jump on the bandwagon by desperately using trending hashtags that don’t apply to your products and services, just stop. Come up with your own unique hashtag to use in your social media strategy and invite friends and followers to join in; or, you can always look for trending conversations that allow your business to actually contribute relevant thoughts!

3. If you’re not utilizing visual media, you need to start. Are you just posting self-promotional updates such as “We’re open!” or “New special!”, or maybe even just a status consisting of a phone number? (Yes, we’ve seen this.) Well, it’s not drawing the attention you want and need for your social media strategy. Think about it: When you’re scrolling through your social media sites, do you stop to read every update? Of course not. Which ones do you automatically pause at? More than likely, the answer is the ones with photos or videos. So spice up your posts with pictures! If you’re updating about a new product, post a picture of a happy customer with it. If you’re holding an event, come up with a digital flyer to announce it. There are lots of things you can do to ensure your posts stand out in a sea of text. For ideas, visit: Pictures on Social Media via Klout.

4. You’re not updating enough (or consistently enough). When was the last time you updated your Facebook account? How about that Twitter account? If it was more than a week ago, or—cringe—you can’t even remember when you last posted, then it’s time to evaluate your goals. Your social media strategy hinges on your consistency. You might not see a lot of engagement or sharing right away. That’s to be expected. But that doesn’t mean you should stop. You might feel like you’re playing to an empty room, but that’s simply part of growing your social media sites! And, if you update often, search engines will pick up on this and rank your social media sites more consistently. Social media sites do not contribute to the SEO rankings of your main site, but think of it this way: If someone finds your Facebook page before they find you, they can still get in contact with you if they like what they see. And a Facebook wall full of informative, insightful posts is a great way to hook them!
5. The voice you use for your company isn’t consistent. There are far too many incidences of small business owners mixing their personal lives with their professional ones. And in some cases, it’s great to add a humanizing element to your posts: For example, connecting with the community, getting involved with non-profits, or celebrating holidays with customers and clients are all acceptable ways to participate. But if you’re mad about who lost last night’s game or are irritated with a customer or client, remember this: Do. Not. Update. Everything you write on the internet can be found again and used against you in the worst possible scenario. If you respond to an angry customer in an inappropriate way, or if you go on a rant that is construed as offensive, you will have a lot of damage to try to repair when someone accuses you of wrongdoing. And they’ll have the screenshots to prove it. And never, ever post about political or religious thoughts. Keep those on your personal profile—nothing brings out the anger and trolling like politics and religion.

We hope you’ve found these social media tips helpful! It takes a while to learn the ropes, and developing an effective and manageable social media strategy can be tough. But with a little practice, you too can enjoy connecting with customers and reaching out to new fans.

If you want assistance in any way, feel free to contact Internet Local Listings. We have a number of packages available to help you get the most out of your social media and business listings on the internet!

Check out a video here, and share with friends and followers!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53aSuq-DhIY]

Developing Successful Social Media Strategies

When you own a small business, developing successful social media strategies is probably one of the last things on your mind. Dollars and cents matter to you, and spending money on marketing is expensive. Plus, who has the time to spend updating social media sites? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn… it seems there’s always a new site to join, and on top of that, it is time consuming. Extra time is not a luxury that you have when you run your own business!

However, developing social media strategies doesn’t have to be something that's completely out of your reach. With a little planning and organization, you can connect with customers on social media and still have time to run your business the way you want.

Pick Your Poison

Okay, that makes it sound pretty negative. But it’s something that you’ll have to do before you take any other steps. Just because a social media network exists doesn’t mean that you have to be on it. Your business may do very well on the most popular platforms such as Facebook and Twitter—or perhaps you’re more interested in visual platforms like Pinterest or Instagram. Think about how you already connect with your customers and choose platforms that mimic that connection in an online atmosphere. You will feel more comfortable getting started like this, and in turn, you’ll interact with them in a natural way. Your efforts will give you a great start to your new marketing plan.

Create a Schedule

If you don’t have a plan going into your new marketing strategy, well… you don’t have much of a strategy, do you? After all, you wouldn’t plan a work week by just showing up whenever you felt like it. You have to create a schedule and stick to it.

The bad news is that all social media networks have different rules for posting. It can be a bit tricky to get the hang of the rules, especially when you consider that most of them are unspoken. But in general, you should try to update at least once a day, no matter which platform you’re on. A key factor to remember here is that quality matters more than quantity. However, no matter how often you’re updating, you have to be consistent. In fact, Search Engine Watch states that sixty-one percent of marketers say content creation takes too much time, while only 44 percent report that they have an actual marketing strategy. Don’t let yourself be one of those unprepared marketers. Create your schedule and you’ll already be ahead of the game.

Try Different Things

After you start sending out updates on your social media profiles, you’re going to have to monitor the responses you get. When you first start out, you probably won’t see much interaction, so you will have be the one who reaches out to others. Find people who share your interests and leave comments for them. Strike up a conversation about their products and services. Find potential customers by searching for people with interests related to your business. Offer an incentive for following you—a coupon, entry into a raffle, anything you can think of that will get your customers excited about your business.

Next, monitor your success by keeping track of visitors to your site through webmaster tools and analytics (if you don’t know how to sign up for these things, check out this guide). Look at common themes that seem to do well—do your customers enjoy picture posts? Do they like contests or special coupons? Whatever seems to be getting the most interaction is what you’re going to want to keep doing.

Keep at It

Developing successful social media strategies isn’t something you’ll be able to do right the first time. It might be disappointing to hear, but it’s true. You must work at it, and you must be willing to try new things. You need to remember that you are not a marketer and you shouldn’t have the same expectations for yourself that you would if you hired the professionals. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy increased traffic and online visibility. With consistency and some research, you’ll be able to make a difference in your web traffic without spending a lot of money.

Of course, there is always affordable help available if you need it. At Internet Local Listings, our packages start at just $199 a month for basic marketing services. Give us a call at (888) 770-3950 or visit our site to fill out a contact request today if you would like assistance!