Susan TuckerSocial media has grown in the past few years and it continues to grow with very little signs of slowing down. In fact, I would say that the term social media marketing will soon morph into simply “marketing”. It’s a given that most people are online in one way or another, and whether your target audience is on Facebook, LinkedIn or SnapChat, chances are they have a social media account somewhere (72% do and that number is rising).
A small business is more likely to have success if they take advantage of the how the platforms are used to connect with current and potential customers. Utilizing social media is a bit more involved than just signing up for an account. Once an account is created, it needs to be managed. But, how can you properly manage a social media account when you’re busy dealing with the day-to-day operations? Hopefully this post will help get you going in the right direction!
Here are some ideas to managing social media marketing for small business:
Organization
Proper organization is key when trying to stay ahead with your social media management. There are a number of tools that you can use to keep track of everything including Hootsuite Dashboard. This tool lets you use all of your social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – plus many, many other applications – by signing into one location. Once you are completely set up this is one dashboard to sign into to manage all of your accounts rather than having to spend one whole day signing into each account individually. You can even view all of your messages from Hootsuite and respond from there. Another great feature of Hootsuite that saves time is the “suggested post” feature. Type in your keywords and the system will aggregate post ideas for you.
Other social media dashboards to consider:
Content
A content calendar is a good way to ensure that you are making updates frequently. Ahead of time you can set up what days you are going to update your content and what the topic is going to be. You can have a list ready to go so you aren’t sitting in front of your computer screen trying to determine what you want to post today. Everything will already be decided and you can make a few clicks and be done. Create content that is timely and relevant. Get started with your content calendar with these quick tips:
- Start by outlining the year and highlighting main events, holidays and seasons.
- Focus on one quarter at a time and identify a monthly theme or topics to cover.
- Break down each month with your thematic or topic idea by identifying what types of posts you can create around it: text, video, micro-video, visuals, related quotes, questions, fill in the blanks, etc.
Collaboration
When it comes to internet content you want to make sure that what you post is as diverse as possible. You want to connect with the public but you also want to make sure that your content and contact does not seem redundant. It is a good idea to have a social media team on your side to help you along. This team can be made up of other co-workers, employees and you can even outsource to a third party writer to create your content for you. This also gives you a backup option if you are sick, on vacation, busy with more important items of business or simply have writer’s block.
Set Aside The Time
The more present you are on social media the more success you will see from it. You should set aside a few hours a month to plan out and schedule content, then set aside at least ten minutes each day to check in on your social media accounts.
The great thing about social media is that it does not have down time. Social media is ongoing and it can be used any time of day or night. Taking control of your social media sites by way of good management techniques can really help you utilize these new venues to their optimal potential. Not only that but proper management allows you to spend as little amount of time on social media as you can while still reaping the benefits.
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