Social media has reached the point where simply managing a Facebook and Twitter account is not adequate for an effective social content strategy. The emergence of a number of dynamic social media sites over the past decade, and the need for businesses to embrace these profitable platforms, now requires business owners to develop a strategy that can effectively combine and make use of all of their social media accounts.
This may be easier said than done, however, as doing so will require tackling some complex issues, including coordinated promotion across platforms and developing efficient internal workflow plans. But the effort is necessary to maximize your company’s content potential across platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and YouTube. And don’t forget your industry-related social sites.
Having a cohesive strategy also keeps companies from making some basic mistakes, such as leveraging the same (duplicate) material across several platforms or contradicting a message on one platform with a different message on another.
If you find yourself in this position, here are some helpful guidelines to follow in managing multiple social media accounts.
1. Have an overall strategy.
It’s tempting to rush out and get social media channels up and running as fast as possible, but leave that to the teenagers and soccer Moms. They can afford to post online without a plan, but as a business owner or stakeholder, you cannot. Before opening even the first account, sit down with everyone involved and formulate a strategy for how, when, where and why you will post on a social media channel – and then stick to that plan, making adjustments as you go.
2. Don’t try to do everything.
Managing the scope of your social media initiative is an important first step. Just because another company is on Pinterest does not mean it is right for your company. The same principle applies to every social media outlet. Sit down and develop an overall plan before simply going online and creating multiple social media accounts.
3. Post new content regularly.
This can prove to be one of the most difficult tasks – the creation of compelling content on a regular basis that is not simply a rehash of content previously posted on your social media channel. Keep track of the reaction to posting frequency and adjust posting times to coincide with when people are showing the most interest. Do your own frequent testing, as different audiences will give different results.
4. Cross-promote, but don’t duplicate.
As stated previously, it’s a bad idea to simply post duplicate content on multiple social media channels. However, this typically should not preclude the practice of cross-promoting across multiple channels.
For example, Twitter provides an excellent method of pushing readers to content on other platforms – just be absolutely sure the content is helpful and informative, and that it is accurately depicted in the originating platform’s post.
5. Keep an eye on analytics.
Is your website gaining a large audience that is growing? Are you “converting” a respectable percentage of that traffic, i.e., are they taking the action you want them to take, such as purchasing a product or clicking through to another Website? By studying your website tracking analytics – the free Google Analytics is often sufficient – or going more in-depth with purchased tracking software, it’s easier to determine how Web traffic is behaving and where adjustments need to be made with social media content.
6. Plan your work, work your plan.
Because there may be numerous people involved with content creation across the various social media platforms, it’s important that a clear plan is developed about who will do what. Otherwise, employees may waste time doing the same tasks.
Don’t expect immediate results. Smart use of social media platforms will typically translate into slow, steady growth. It takes time to build up a loyal following – time spent creating quality content and promoting it properly on the various social media channels. Those looking for fast, massive changes will likely be disappointed.
Whatever the details of your social media plan, it’s important to first actually have one. Spend time developing the proper course for your business and then stick to it. Trust in your strategy and it may very well result in more traffic, better branding, higher conversions and an overall improved business.
This guest post was provided by Jessica Edmondson who writes about social media courses and Web analytics training for the University Alliance, a division of Bisk Education, Inc.
Photo credit: by HikingArtist.com, john.schultz
Excellent BLOG on having a plan and sticking to it. The goal is not to do every social media initiative. It’s to do the ones that fit your product/service best and do them well. If you concentrate on the plan above, you have a better chance of actually MONETIZING your social media strategy.
being active on all social media is tough and probably not a wise move as your blog stated. Still, there are a lot of interesting conversations occuring across the fragmented social networks and to keep up with some of these discussions I have been using Engagio. You should give it a try and see how it fits in your social media strategy
I can’t stress how important #2 is. So many businesses try to juggle
several social media accounts (FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, G+,
Foursquare, Instagram, Quora… you get the picture) and end up getting overwhelmed, so they
see little to no results. I suggest that companies ask themselves where their
customers are, and REALLY think
about which social networks they should be on. I think they should focus on
those 2 or 3 networks and ignore the ones that don’t add value to their business.
Great advice. Like @twitter-27127653:disqus mentioned, way too many companies create profiles just to have them. The worst is when they create these accounts but then do nothing on them except the “big” ones while the others sit, updated once every month. That will never drive engagement, let alone traffic.
Having a social network to have it is not good strategy, that’s why strategy and planning is important. Even if you’re helping a client, it’s just as important to create a plan so you can be on the same page about what’s being posted.
Re: #4- so true. Scott Stratten calls this “Mannequin networking” where you’re posing to be there but you’re not really there.
I would add that engaging across these networks is also important and you need that 360 view of activity. A tool like Engagio lets you see where your friends are engaging across the networks and commenting communities. For eg here’s my engagement profile http://engag.io/wmougayar
Absolutely agree with this post. In order to succeed in social media marketing you definitely need a plan/strategy. You need to set goals and figure out the best possible way to attain them. Posting regularly is also key, your fans want to interact with your brand so if you go MIA it’s likely your fans will too. – Carra at Marketo