If your business is not on social media today, one can comfortably liken it to not using computers in this day and age where technology is everything. Social media can work for large and small businesses alike; help them meet their operational and existence goals. Businesses can leverage the power of social networks like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to get their products out there to the market, build brands, and provide service to customers, real time.
However, not all social media works perfectly. To create a seamless, effective social media performance for your business, you must have the right strategy with you. Nevertheless, how do you create such a strategy?
Choose social network wisely
Research has shown that the biggest challenge facing most companies on social media is that, they spread themselves too thin on all social networks without necessarily making headway. The truth is that, this is the failure in the social media strategy.
You need to determine where your audience is and how friendly the social networks you choose work for your brand. For example, if you have a youth oriented product, focusing social media efforts on Facebook and Instagram are a great idea; so is focusing on LinkedIn if the audience you’re looking for includes CEO’s.
Choose metrics to measure impact
Let’s face it; it’s a waste of time and resources to have busy bodies on social media-where impact can’t be measured. You need to narrow down on the specifics on how you’ll crunch your numbers as far as the social media initiative impact is concerned. Is it about traffic to your website, sales increase, and positive response to posts or more likes? Once you determine what you want to achieve with social investment, your battle is half won. Having goals with social media is very important, according to most experts.
Outsourcing
Most businesses face this common snag concerning the executing social media strategy. Do you hire a third party company to do it on your behalf or get someone in-house? The truth of the matter is that, an outsourced company can know only enough about a company, but can’t nail it 100%, as far as being the clear ‘voice’ of the company is concerned. Of course, there are exceptions to this, but in-house social media executors seem to be the best.
Scale the activity
Social media is a moment’s thing. It’s about what is happening now. You cannot afford to create a single post every week and expect good results. Competitors will probably keep the audience engaged and worse, you could lose out. You need to keep your audience engaged at all times. Study your audience habits and use the proper tools to ensure that you keep them engaged, always.
Learn from the competition
When it comes to social media, the competition is the best teacher. Inasmuch as it may hurt you, some word choices bring traffic to a page; find out which words these are and use them on your strategy. Most times, the best place to get this insight is through your competition.
Make the social experience interactive
The truth is that, social media success only happens when users and fans feel like you’re interacting. Use varied media: videos, sounds, webinars, and images to create a sticky interactive page on the networks where your brand is based. Simply, learn to use different Medias that keep your customers or fans longer on your page for long as this is a recipe for great overall performance.
Keep it human
No matter how tempted you are to detach from the brand page, remember that every one of your fans is human. The human aspect is where you should connect with fans. Learn about your audience and look for the proper way to keep the association as human as possible. Companies like Disney have appealed to magical emotional experience to get ahead. Discover this about your audience; this way you will have a successful social media nerve to write home about.
Author Bio
Stephanie Strazinsky is a chief writer at bestessays.com with a background in psychology, e-learning, and marketing.
