Written by Megan Coghlan | Backcourt Marketing | KNOW Phoenix
We get it, you don’t have time to be on social media.
You have a Twitter page set up, or maybe you don’t, but either way, you don’t want to deal with it. Maybe you’ve even hired someone (like us) to “do the Tweeter” for you. Maybe you don’t know anything about Twitter or Instagram. You might even despise social media.
That is perfectly fine.
However, whether you are an employee or the owner of your business, you still know more about your subject matter, your story, and the heart and soul of your company and its industry than any social media manager does. That is valuable insight that needs to be a part of your social media strategy.
When customers have inquiries, or a hot topic of your specialty is trending online, you are still the best person to be providing that commentary. For this reason, we highly encourage the smart people like you that we work with to pay attention to what their social media audiences care about and make meaningful connections with customers and potential leads.
On top of that, if you’re not interacting with these specific audience channels, you could be missing out on sparked ideas and opportunities. Luckily, interacting on social media does not have to be hard and we can promise you it gets easier. Like most things, it just requires a small time commitment and some dedication.
Here are some steps to help you create a plan:
Allow your social platforms to send you emails. First and foremost, make sure your email alerts are turned on. And if they are, don’t delete everything Twitter sends you.
Twitter will send you daily updates of popular tweets amongst your followers, a summary of your notifications, and more. Sure, you might already get 1,000 emails in a day, but if regular engagement and audience growth is a priority to you, pay attention to those emails and the social media process will become a no-brainer in no time.
Allow notifications on your phone. If you need to give yourself as many reminders as possible to get active on social media, go for it. Like getting a text message, you can adjust your social media app settings to notify you when you are mentioned, or when someone engages with your posts. And if it drives you crazy, you can turn them back off anytime.
Set Goals. If you are a goal-oriented person, this should come naturally. Try establishing obtainable goals for yourself similar to these ideas:
Leave five comments a week on relevant posts within Facebook or LinkedIn groups. Increase your Facebook Business Page’s response rate to 85% in the next two weeks. Retweet industry articles or posts including your commentary at least three times a week. Dedicate 15 minutes per day to scroll through your social media newsfeeds, focusing on opportunities to engage. Work with your social media manager to create goals that make sense for your business and the social media platforms you use.
Include your staff. Your employees are a huge asset towards multiplying the reach of your social media efforts. There are many ways to encourage your staff to engage with your brand on social media, including responding to their posts positively and making company announcements on LinkedIn, for example.
Think about using social media as a way to give your employees a virtual high-five for their thoughts and efforts.
You might dread the idea of being on social media, but we promise you it gets easier the more you do it. Your insights and knowledge are important and sharing them on a public platform increases the trustworthiness of your brand greatly.
Start small and spend 15 minutes a day on Twitter, for example, just so that you can tell yourself, “It’s only 15 minutes.” You have the easy part, and we can take care of all the rest for you.
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