Social media for businesses is a tough nut to crack, so follow these tips to create a real community around your product.
Source: 8 Tips to Running an Actually Successful Social Media Campaign | Inc.com
Here’s the fluff: If you’re a small business owner and/or entrepreneur, you will likely need to effectively implement a social media strategy. You can ‘wing it’ and hope your product/service catches your target audience, or you can strategically implement a campaign and reduce the guesswork and wasted effort. Ed Citron, Inc.com author, wrote an excellent article describing 8 tips to running a successful campaign. Here is the summary, and my own spin on each. Enough with the fluff, here’s the practical stuff:
1. Have a strategy.
Here’s the obvious, we’re talking about social media, so… be social. That means don’t simply push your products and services to your followers. Engage your followers, ask questions about how can your service or product serve them better. Social media isn’t about what YOU can get from your followers, but what value can you add for THEM.
What’s the strategy? What’s the plan? Who are you trying to reach? Which social media channel are they primarily using? Younger folks may use Instagram vs. Facebook. There isn’t a one-size fit all answer to these questions, and there are many more questions you can ask. The goal to creating a strategy is identifying what you want to get out of your efforts (i.e. engage with your audience and build brand loyalty and repeat customers), and come up with a plan you can sustain.
2. Participate like a human.
You’re not a robot (at least I don’t THINK you are) so don’t speak like one. Talk to your audience just as you would if you were face to face with them. Ask questions, chime in on conversations related to your industry, offer insight, acknowledge concerns. Remember what I said earlier, this is social media, be social.
3. Use social media tools.
Did you decide to participate in several social media platforms? You’ve heard of them, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr. You will surely find that having an effective and productive social media presence CAN be very time consuming. Each platform has its own language, and the time of day your audience may engage in one (or many) of them will vary. Work smarter and not harder. Invest in a social media dashboard and schedule your posts ahead of time (when practical). Are you blogging? Coming up with great content is only part of the equation, the other part is getting the content in front of your audience. Social media tools allow you to spend less time on the administrative tasks and more time getting your core work done.
4. Ask them to follow you. No, really.
There’s no shame in asking for your audience to follow you. Ask them to share the word, share your content, and comment. Ask leading questions, and then, hear them out.
5. Make it worth their while.
Why do you want people to follow you? What’s in it for THEM? How do you and your business add value to them? Perhaps you will offer exclusive discounts, or they can enter giveaways. How about long-term? Consider featuring them and their comments, recognition goes a LONG way.
6. Involve your customers.
Making it worth their while to follow you doesn’t mean giving away the farm for free. A fan will appreciate your discounts and freebies, but they will spend more and more often if they want to support your business and want to see you continue to succeed. If you visit a friend’s restaurant, are you expecting deep discounts and free drinks? or would you rather spend more and bring more business to your friend? I would hope the latter. The same is true for your very own customers. There’s nothing more I love than repeat customers. To me, it means I’ve earned their trust and have provided them with valuable products. Often times we offer discount codes to repeat customers, only to find they choose to shop with us and not use the discounts because they want us to continue growing and get every penny.
The worst kinds of customers are the ones who are motivated only by that which they get free.
So how do you earn their trust and repeat business? Don’t just talk about it, be about it. Thank them publicly, listen to their feedback, provide value and a good experience. It’s not what YOU consider a value, its what your CUSTOMER considers a value. Ask them to share with you what they purchased, why they selected your product and what was/is their experience. And above it all, be genuine in your questions/comments/interactions.
7. Measure success.
There’s a ton of information and data analytics for each social media platform. There are industry statistics that will claim to tell you what is successful and what is not. At the end of the day ask yourself one question (see tip umber 1 above), did you identify what you want to get out of your efforts? Do you want to earn two new sales per month? or perhaps earn 20 new leads? How much time did you allocate to earn those leads/sales? Is the strategy working or do you need to pivot? Success is what you make of it, which is why my advice at the top is to come up with a number goal you can measure against.
8. Build a contact database.
If a tree falls in the forest but no one is there to hear it, did it make a sound? Sure, it makes a sound, but if no one hears it, then the sound was pointless. What’s that got to do with Social Media? If you have 1 million followers but 0 of them reply, retweet, comment, share, mention or engage in any way, are they important to your social media campaign? I argue that yes, because they may be listening quietly and reading your posts promptly. You can also argue that they DON’T matter because they aren’t helping your business grow online. Do you know whether they’ve recommended your business offline? Don’t take your followers lightly. Watch who they interact with, who they are influenced by, what they talk about, who they follow. This will better help you learn about your target audience and identify best ways for you to communicate with them.
Developing an effective social media strategy doesn’t have to be tough. I hope you found these 8 tips practical and useful. Do you have any other tips you’d like to share? Comment below or tweet at me, I’d love to hear about it!