By Bob Decker
Stuck in a social media rut?
When was the last time you evaluated your social media strategy? Have you made any changes to the channels you're posting to regularly or what types of content you’re sharing?
If it has been a while since you have taken a good, hard look at your social media game plan, now is a great time to reevaluate.
Here are six rules that may have changed since the last time you considered what you’re posting and where:
1. Don’t go it alone.
Whatever the size of your company, be sure more than one person is authorized as an administrator on each of your social media channels. For example, on LinkedIn, a couple of people other than the social media manager should be designated as an Admin on your company’s account. The same goes for other people having the login information for your X account, as well as any other channels where you have a presence.
2. Involve everyone on your team.
It used to be that many companies’ IT departments blocked access to social media channels on your company’s computers. If that’s still the policy, it’s time to change that or you risk losing an opportunity to turn employees into vocal brand advocates.
Ask everyone in your company to like or follow your business page on all social media channels that you run, and encourage them to share company news with their friends and followers.
Find out who in your company likes to take pictures or videos and incentivize them to participate in your social media outreach. Encourage them to share interesting insights from trade shows, and anything else that makes your company look like a cool place to work that’s full of smart people. Reward employees who contribute posts by giving them a photo credit in the caption and maybe a small reward for each post you use.
3. Set guardrails.
If you’re delegating social media tasks within your organization or to an agency, be sure to have a decision tree in place that sets rules for how everything from events to customer questions to outright attacks will be handled. Set clear expectations about approvals for posts.
Be open to what employees will share in their role as brand representatives, but also set the guardrails in advance for what kind of posts are acceptable or not.
4. Use an editorial calendar.
Set a goal for how often you want to post to your social media channels. Once a week is good if you haven’t had a policy up until this point. Then create a document where Column A is dates and Column B is what your posts are going to be about on that date. Column C should be the call to action for each post.
Try to plan ahead for six or seven weeks. Be sure the editorial calendar gets looked at regularly by putting it on the agenda of a recurring meeting.
Are you suddenly in charge of social media for your company? Wondering where to start? Need a plan? Get your social media checklist: 5 Simple Tips to Get Your Social Media Channels Up and Running.
5. Videos rule the day.
Posts with a photo or video consistently get more engagement than just words, and posts with short videos get the most engagement of all. When it comes to videos, keep it short and sweet. Completion rates drop off sharply for videos longer than 60 seconds.
6. Don’t overthink it.
Do you struggle to come up with enough to post on social media? Here are some easy post ideas that get great engagement. With all of these, make sure they are authentic and focused on WIIFM (what’s in it for me?) to keep followers engaged:
- Trade shows where you’re exhibiting make a great photo and video opportunity. People love “behind the scenes” looks at booth set up or tech checks.
- Share anything you’ve changed, improved, or added to in your products or services.
- If you’ve added anything to your website like blog posts, case studies, and guides, pass it on.
- When new people join your team, share their photos and a quick bio.
- Post press coverage about your company. Be sure to tag the publication writing about you. It’s good manners to give them credit – and they will be more likely to post about you again in the future.
- Company events like an annual picnic or holiday party are a surprisingly great photo and video opportunity. Anything that makes your company look fun!
- Wish your customers safe and happy celebrations before major holidays.
- Let your customers do the talking. It’s one of the best ways to be authentic and attract more prospects like them.
Here’s a bonus seventh tip: Do you have pixels embedded into your website code for your social media channels like Facebook and LinkedIn? If not, you’re missing a big opportunity to engage with the people you care about the most. Retargeting those prospects is a set-it-and-forget-it way to stay top of mind for potential buyers.
Are you tired of feeding the social media beast with engaging content week after week? Are you unsure of which social channels make the most sense for your business? Would you like to try retargeting ads, but you have no clue where to start?
At Redpines, we help our clients with overall social strategy, daily posting, getting started, and everything in between. Please reach out to me by phone at 415-409-0233 if you’d like to find out more.
