Social Media Dilema

With so many social media platforms available how do you decide where to place your focus?

The big brand companies now have dedicated departments to control their social media, people whose full time job is to maintain the company image on social media and deal with any correspondence and to keep an eye on competitions etc.

But if you aren’t a major brand company, and don’t have a dedicated department for social media how can you maintain a presence across all the platforms?

Well...you can't!

As a micro business you control all aspects of your business.  Instead of having departments for sales, purchasing and marketing, you just put on a different hat and get down to work, and that just doesn’t leave enough hours in the day to manage all social media platforms.

Instead you need to think about your ideal client.  Who is your ideal client, and where do they spend their time on social media?  There is no point in putting time and effort into Instagram if your clients are on Twitter.  Narrow it down to just one platform to begin with.

Once you have identified the best platform for you to use you then need to find out what time your clients are online.  Social Media moves so quickly these days that anything posted in the morning will be lost by the evening, so you need to post when your clients are actually online to have the best chance of being seen.

Scheduling posts to go out at certain times will allow you to speak to your audience when it is convenient for them – even if that time is when you are making dinner or at the gym.  You can schedule as much or as little as you like, often a week or month at a time is quite beneficial as you can spend an hour or so focussed just on creating posts that your ideal customer will enjoy reading.

Keep your posts short and sweet and light hearted too.  Remember that your customers use social media as a social arena first, with purchasing coming second.  If you have a lot to say break it down into several shorter posts, or make it into a blog, which can then be used to drive traffic to your website.

Keep an eye on your social media to answer any questions or respond to comments as they arise.  And finally, keep to the 80/20 rule: 80% interesting content, 20% selling.

If you would like some help managing your social media please email jamie@jamiegoodenough.co.uk