It's important to realize that an effective social media marketing process requires daily effort and consistency. A recent study by Vertical Response found that 43% of small businesses spend six hours or more per week on social media and 18% spend more than ten hours per week. While many people think social media marketing is "free", they're not taking into account the time necessary to manage the program or that needed to produce the content you need to feed your social media machine. So with that said, here are my tips.
Before you begin a social media marketing program, you need to establish a strategy. Your strategy should tie in with your overall online marketing strategy. Some of the things that you should consider when developing your strategy are:
This article is not about developing your strategy, but these are some of the questions you need to ask yourself in the strategy development process.
I highly recommend using social media marketing software like Hootsuite or HubSpot. This software lets you schedule social media posts, monitor mentions and shares of your content, and provides analytics for your social media marketing efforts. I spend 30 minutes every morning before I do anything else to schedule my posts for the day. Pick a time that works for you and adhere to it religiously. Social media marketing success is a cumulative result; consistency breeds success.
When posting on social media, you should strive to be viewed as a trusted advisor, not a shill. Share content that is helpful and interesting to your audience. Yes, you can and should use social media as a sales tool. However, if that's all you do, people will turn you off quickly. I recommend using the 10:4:1 rule: for every 15 posts, 1 should be to your landing page, 4 should be to your blog articles and 10 should be other people's content. At a minimum, use the 50/50 rule: half your stuff, half other people's stuff.
While social media marketing software provides the capability to schedule tweets across different social media channels, I suggest you resist the urge to do so. In my case, I post daily on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. Each of these platforms has different conventions and ideal times for posting. According to Social Caffeine, here are the best and worst times to post on the various social media networks:
FACEBOOK Best times: 1PM to 4PM Worst times: 8PM to 8AM
TWITTER Best times: 1PM to 3PM Worst times: 8PM to 9AM
LINKEDIN Best times: 7AM to 9AM or 5PM to 6PM Worst times: 10PM to 6AM
GOOGLE+ Best times: 9AM to 11AM Worst times: 6PM to 8AM
So if I wanted to promote my new blog post and scheduled it across the 4 channels at 8:30 AM, I'd be in the LinkedIn ideal zone, but I would miss the other 3 channels. I recommend scheduling 4 separate posts at different times with different wording. Write the posts in a way that recognizes the etiquette of the particular network. My pet peeve is to see Twitter hashtags on LinkedIn and Google+ - it shows that you're not taking the time to tailor your posts and content to your audience. One last tip - don't forget to schedule posts on weekends. There's less competition and you might be surprised at how many views you get.
It's important to monitor how your audience is reacting to your social media posts and sharing your content. You should thank and acknowledge those sharing your content and return the favor, if appropriate. Most social media software platforms have smartphone apps that give you real-time notifications of when your company is mentioned or when your content is shared. When you find out you've been mentioned or your content has been shared, respond. Thank the person and re-tweet their shares for Twitter. For other networks, send a message thanking the person and considering sharing some of their content.
Social media software platforms aggregate analytic data to provide context to your social media marketing efforts. Take advantage of the data. See which posts get the most clicks and shares. This should give you insight on what types of posts and content to share in the future. Close the loop on your analytics to see how social media is driving traffic to your website and to see if that traffic is producing leads and customers.
While social media is "free", it requires dedication and consistency to produce business results. If you strive to contextualize your posts, you will increase your chances for success. Use the tactics described above and use an iterative process to achieve your ultimate goal: driving revenue from your social media marketing.