21 Mar 2016
Due to its relatively recent introduction into the world, social media is often still thought of as an extension to existing marketing plans, or as an after-thought, with activity occurring only when marketers have free time.
Social media acts as a vital link to your contacts, enabling you to communicate with them at any time of the day. In order for you to embrace this powerful tool effectively, we have compiled some tips for you to consider when venturing out into the world of social media.
1. Define your marketing goals
Before implementing any business tactics, you should always consider any business goals that you may have, and what effect you would like the action to have on your business and stakeholders. These considerations should also be applied to your social media strategy. This will then enable you to tailor your network activity.
You need to consider what your marketing goals are and how you can achieve them. Here, we highlight some typical marketing points for you to contemplate implementing:
- Brand awareness – join groups and post content that can easily be shared
- Increase website traffic – post about the key services that your firm can offer and link back to your website
- Increased client base – connect with people on LinkedIn
- Increased engagement with clients –take all advice on board and reply to client social media accounts
- Reinforcement of your brand identity and brand association – share relevant articles to outline your knowledge of the field.
The above goals and activities are not standalone ones. They are interchangeable, and should complement each other to make sure that your social media profile is well-rounded.
2. What is your company's voice?
Now that you have formed social media objectives, you need to decide on the style of your communications. How do you want your company to be represented? What sort of tone would you like to set for your company?
There are a variety of choices here. If you want your communications to be formal and professional, stick to sharing factual articles and promoting the features of your firm.
For a more personable and friendly approach, you could share information on topics outside of your specialism and utilise a more amiable persona. Using a relaxed style doesn’t mean that you are less professional or less knowledgeable in your field – you can still share expert content. The examples above are at either ends of the spectrum - you don’t have to choose one or the other. Find your own unique voice to communicate in the most natural way possible.
Additionally, conveying your chosen style to not only those using your social media accounts but also your entire workforce will help in ensuring that consistency is retained during colleagues’ communications with external contacts.
3. Choose the correct channels
You don’t have to use every single social media network to make a positive impact. Many platforms will not be relevant to your business and its goals.
The easiest networks to get started on are LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook as these are easy to set up and can be used to connect with businesses and clients immediately.
Remember to keep all of your social media channels updated to provide your company with the best possible representation. Old content may make your company seem lazy or not up-to-date with the latest news.
4. Create an action plan and schedule post
An action plan for your posts doesn’t have to be complicated – a simple Excel document will suffice, with the following considerations:
- Which social media channel will you be posting to?
- What day and time do you want to post content?
- What is the content?
- Are you using links to your website or articles?
Once this is in place, you can tick off completed posts and use this as a record of what you have posted. This can be used to ensure that you are covering all of the key topics you want to communicate, and can be given to other colleagues that are interested in the messages that are being sent. Social media channels such as Twitter allow you to use the same message on different days and times. This can prevent your message from becoming absorbed amongst other content. Individuals use social media at different times, and posting on multiple occasions will maximise the potential of each post.
5. Review your efforts
In order to make sure that you are achieving the goals that you originally set out, you should regularly review your social media activity. Measures to assess could include:
- Website page views
- Number of new followers
- Number of shares or retweets
- Number of ‘likes’ or favourites
- Number of new customers and contacts.
Implementing a tracking code into your website can be very beneficial to your marketing review. Powerful tools, such as Google Analytics, can inform you of how visitors found your site, which pages they visited and much more. This can assist you in making decisions for future plans based on which social media channels and messages were successful for you.
Did you know that we offer a social media service exclusively for Practice Track Online customers? From £40+VAT per month, we can post daily, technical content to make sure that your profiles are always up-to-date, whilst encouraging visitors to your site. We can also set up and design your profiles so that your branding remains consistent, both online and offline. For more information, please call 0800 181 343, or email info@practicetrackonline.co.uk
View more posts from our archive