If you’re a small company or a business that doesn’t have a marketing department or person or if you have an intern or your sales manager doing marketing “when they have time”, then you probably aren’t fully taking advantage of social media and marketing for your brand. Not to fear, though. There are some things you can do if you’re running lean and mean on your social media. Here are 5 tips for having an effective social presence when you don’t have a lot of time or resources to devote to doing it.
Here are five tips to get you up and running:
- Determine where your audience is most heavily investing its time.
- Learn the specifics of that social channel.
- Stay on brand.
- Develop a content plan and stick to it.
- Be consistent.
Determine where your audience is most heavily investing its time.
If you only have so much time to invest in doing social media, you are going to want to pick one platform and do it well. With a little bit of research you can figure out what types of people use which social media platforms. For example, LinkedIn users are going to be those people in the business world, whether an employee of a business, a business owner or somebody looking to sell or buy services. A platform like Pinterest, which is more visual, is going to appeal to a crowd of people looking for ideas for recipes, fashion, DIY projects, etc. Instagram is also visual, but more likely to be used by artistic people or brands and influencers. Knowing who your audience is and where they hang will be vital to deciding where you invest your precious time and effort.
Learn the specifics of that social channel.
Every channel is going to have different requirements for graphic elements like profile pics and banner images. It will also have different requirements for how much space you have to tell a potential client or customer who you are and what you offer. Some channels are photo only and others are photos and videos. Knowing the limitations of the platform you choose is just as important as the guidelines. For example, you can create a text only post on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but if you wanted to do that on Instagram or Pinterest, you would have to create a graphic to go along with it. By learning the limitations and guidelines, you can maximize your digital space.
Stay on brand.
No matter what platform you choose, you need to present your brand the same wherever potential customers are going to see your content. This is especially important if you can scale up later and add more social channels. You don’t want to come across one way on one channel and a completely different way on another channel. Knowing your brand voice and sticking to it is critical. Knowing your brand voice and being able to adapt it to the different needs of the different platforms is also important.
Develop a content plan and stick to it.
If you don’t have a lot of time or expect somebody else to be able to jump in and post something for you, you’re going to need a content plan. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but should include the types of content you will be posting as well as how often. Deciding day of posting will most likely not get you the best post with the best messages. Deciding ahead of time that you will post once a day on Facebook and follow a set list of hashtags for each day will help you tremendously. For example, if you are going to do #MondayMotivation then you would figure out an inspiring quote or advice or link it to your company or product and philosophies or ideas. So, if I were to post on Facebook every Monday, I would try to find a quote ahead of time to use. You can save quotes that you see throughout the week and stockpile content. When the next Monday rolls around, you’ll have several choices and can slide something in that seems apropos to the current trending topics or conversation. If you are especially on top of your game, you can even schedule your Facebook post ahead of time using Facebook’s native scheduling feature. One thing to keep in mind when doing this is to watch the news of the day. Sometimes breaking news can render a scheduled post obsolete or even worse- offensive or tone deaf. For example, a scheduled post about McDonald’s coffee coming out the same day that a class action lawsuit over customers being scalded by McDonald’s coffee would not go over very well.
Be consistent.
Above all, stick to your planned posting schedule. Allow potential customers time to discover your content and eventually come to expect it. If they know you have new blogs coming out every Wednesday, they’ll be looking forward to your next post on that day. If you aren’t consistently posting a new blog on Wednesdays then they will lose interest and not take the time to keep checking back for new content. When you set your content plan, be realistic about how much you can post and how often. Barely posting or sporadically posting on a single channel is just as bad as barely posting on multiple channels. You need to stick to one channel and do it well. The more consistent you are with posting new content, the easier it is to build an audience and you also get the added benefit of popping up in search results more often.
Are you a business of one or are you a business owner who has been pushing marketing off to people who already have too much on their plate? Let me know in the comments below if these tips are helpful and if you start to see results.
Tai Freligh offers digital marketing and social media services through his company Tai Freligh Consulting, as well as tips, exclusive entertainment interviews and the occasional dog and cat picture. Catch me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn on my Tai Freligh Consulting company page. You can also drop a connection request to me on my LinkedIn profile.