What follows is a series of blogs taking you back to basics and based around the Social Media 121 service Push Start Marketing provides to start-ups and SME’s. Social Media 121 is a training service, where you can come for two hours, ‘you me and a cup of tea’, and fix any woes you may have, related to social media. That might be how to use LinkedIn properly, setting up a Facebook page or creating an email database and of course, setting social media marketing objectives.
I’d like to kick off with the objectives one… ‘I know I should be doing it, and I do sometimes, but I feel like I’m just dabbling…’ A very common statement and one that I address in almost every session.
How do I do social, right?
Just for a moment, forget about posting status updates, or photos… The first and most common mistake is to dive straight into social media marketing without a proper plan. If you don’t know what your objectives are, you can’t measure your success, so get planning:
What is your goal?
What do your financial and time budgets look like?
What platforms do you like to use?
First off, try writing out a list in answer to those questions. If you don’t have a lot of time, but you are on site, or with customers a lot, you will need to plan when you can take care of your marketing.
TIP: Remember, social media is largely free, and very inexpensive to advertise through, so make the most of it; Include it in your ‘on the business days’, rather than let in encroach on your ‘in the business days’.
Goals, strategies and tactics
The goal is the overarching desire, the thing you want to achieve. Sounds silly, but do you know why you want to use social media? Write it down.
The strategy is where a lot of people try to start from, and in this case, that would be social media, but what suits your business best? Are you B2B or B2C? Can you take lots of photos and short videos of your work? Are you a compliance based business?
Tactics are the nitty gritty of exactly what you will be doing, and when. Which platform, what days, what content?
Once you’ve got his clear, you can get on with it! Or can you? No! Make a tactical plan first, please.
Tactical plans for social media marketing management
I can’t tell you what you must be doing, I can only tell you how I like to manage social media accounts. I use my most favoured traditional diary, with the week on one page and a lined page of notes on the other. I block out time to work on each client. You could block out ‘on the business’ days. I then create an excel spreadsheet including themes, dates, diary and columns for each social media platform I am using. I literally enter a note for every tweet, every Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus or Instagram post I wish to send.
Now, here’s the lifesaver… Hootsuite.
Social media dashboards
Hootsuite is one of many dashboard tools that help you manage your social media posting in one session. You can line up your posts far in advance and sit back and watch them go. With a dashboard such as Hootsuite, Buffer or TweetDeck, you can get your social media content out for the month in just a few hours. No more tweeting during dinner, no more sudden shocks that you haven’t been on Facebook for weeks and no more guilt that you aren’t ‘doing it right’.
What social media dashboards don’t do
A dashboard management tool will help you control the amount of time you dedicate to social media. They help you ‘tick the box’ of social media marketing, but they don’t keep you current. If you like to read about your industry, if you like to take photos of interesting jobs you’re working on, or if your work is seasonal, have some fun with social.
You can rely on the messages you have scheduled to keep it warm, but adding fun and time-relevant posts, as and when they happen is what takes your posting to the next level, and that you can never really plan for!
TIP: Social media is social. Yes, it is a marketing tool and a revenue stream, but it is also meant to be fun. Social media will connect you on a deeper level to customers than your website, so don’t be afraid to show them who you are behind the corporate logo.
Lets’ review…
Goal
Strategy
Tactics
Dashboard
Tactical plan
Do – Review - Modify
Fun
Further reading will help you more! Try Social Media Examiner, ‘How to Create a Social Media Marketing Plan’. And if you get stuck, give me a call on 07825 031036, or book into Social Media 121.