We often get asked about how to use social media effectively by our partners, so I put together a short guide to social media, based on our own experience.
Before you start
Answer the following questions:
- What are you trying to achieve?
- How are you planning to achieve this?
- How will this engage your audience?
- How can you measure this?
Tips
- Don’t just share an opinion
- Demonstrate you are qualified to comment on the subject
- Share research that backs up your message
Drafting the copy
Before typing out your post, answer the following questions:
- Who are you talking to?
- What are the key messages you want the readers to take away?
- How are you formatting your article? (Consider sub-headers to structure your article and bullet points to highlight key points)
- What’s your call to action? (Where do readers go, if they want to learn more?)
Tips
- Use a good title to draw your audience in, with an image that reflects the topic
- Write in a clear and concise manner (attention spans are short online)
- Share success stories and tips your audience can use
Posting the copy
It is tempting to post all copy to all platforms, but the overall objective is to get the right message to the right audience at the right time. Take some time to think about which platform your audience favours. In the voice and data channel LinkedIn is very popular. End user businesses favour Facebook as they encourage their customers to like and share their page. I don’t think anyone really uses Google+ but I only have my own research to back this up.
Before posting your copy, answer the following questions:
- Where should you post it? (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook etc.)
- When should you post it? (Daytime, nightime)
- How will you post it? (Via individual platforms/using social media management software)
- Who is going to monitor response rates and answer comments?
Tips
- Think about when your audience goes on social media.
- Think about who is posting and responding to comments. Are they authorised to speak for the company?
- Think about how you will handle both positive and less positive reactions to your post. By giving a good answer and leaving the thread public, you can sometimes turn a negative into a positive.
Measuring success rates
This is the section most forget/don’t have the time to do. By thinking about what you wanted to achieve and measuring against it, you can see if your post was successful.
Tips
- Set realistic targets that are easy to measure, such as, 1 like, 1 share.
- Think about what you want to achieve with your overall strategy and how each post helps you to achieve this. For example, you may want to build awareness and drive traffic to your website, so may want to measure direct visitors from posts to your website.
- Like and share other similar posts to help engage with other companies in your sector and encourage them to like and share yours.
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