How much time do you think about growing your social media following? Chances are you think about it often. When running your business, social media is often too far down your to-do list that you never get an opportunity to work on it. This article offers 5 easy tips to focus your efforts on social media.
While building a personal brand or business, social media can be an excellent way to jump-start engagement. However, if not done properly or ethically it can lead you down some rabbit holes. With only so many hours in a day, you have to make it count.
To cut to the chase, here are several points that will help you focus your time and efforts and spend less time online and more time creating content or working with customers.
1. The audit
You should have a social media presence but that doesn’t mean you need to be on every platform. When building your social media strategy, it is best to start with an audit. (Click here to start StepForth’s social media audit). A social media audit will help you understand where your highest engagement comes from on social media, which platforms you can ditch, and catch any incongruencies.
2. Understanding the platforms you should be on
It’s safe to say there are many social media platforms out there, but being active on every single one isn’t always beneficial. When building a social media strategy, it’s best to review your audit outlining all the social platforms you are active on, which ones have the highest engagement, which ones have room for the most potential growth, and which ones your audience is on. Next, take a look at other businesses or brands that are offering services similar to yours. Through competitive research, assess which platforms they are on and if they have high engagement on those platforms.
3. Developing a strategy
Once you have compiled all your research pick 2-3 platforms that you will commit to. You now know your brand’s/company’s social media positioning. Remember each platform can serve a different purpose. For example, Facebook can be used to share company hours, promotions, and interesting articles, whereas Instagram can be used to leverage articles, share behind the scenes, and awesome imagery. Break down what information is shared where – this will become your strategy.
Super tip: Use a great tool like Milanote to organize your ideas and strategy into visual boards prior to scheduling them in the next step.
4. Schedule posts ahead of time
To bring your strategy into fruition you need to further dissect the content that you will be posting. Create a ‘stockpile’ of potential sharable content for each platform. To make sure all shareable content is on brand, check out our branding article here. It is very important to plan your content ahead of time and include all elements of your post. For example, include all hashtags, tags, mentions, imagery, links and anything else in your posting strategy. The goal is to have your content sequenced by platform, with all posting material so all you have to do is post.
Note: If you want to create your own imagery, check out creative platforms like Canva or Photoshop. For free stock-imagery, check out Unsplash.
5. Share other people’s content
The point of social media boils down to the 3U’s: creating unique content, sharing unique content, and sharing other people’s unique content (ex. articles or credited reposts). Share your followers’ high-quality work and support your community!
Overall, you might be investing more time in the beginning to create your strategy but rest assured if you follow your plan, your daily commitment will be more target, refined and time effective.