Recently, our CEO, Deanna Rivera, hosted a small 2 hour marketing workshop for mother owned businesses. The focus, after polling attendees about their largest concerns, was primarily on social media tips. The day to day care of social media can be an overwhelming subject for most business owners, particularly those who are “doing it all on their own”.
Summarized below are what we feel were the most important takeaways from that conversation. UplinkSpyder may host more of these workshops in the future, so please let us know if you’re interested in attending.
1. Social Media should be used first and foremost as a branding tool for your organization.
Facebook, Instagram and the like provide a way to give potential and current customers consistent information that help to tell your story. Most people won’t buy from your business page directly and your individual posts are only seen by a small percentage of your total audience, so what you want to think most about is the overall impression your page is leaving. If someone were to scroll through all your posts and photos, what feeling would they be left with? Is that feeling consistent with your brand? A great way to influence that feeling is through strategy (see #4 below).
2. Social Media is also a directory.
When looking for you online, your social media channels will be listed along with your website, so it’s important that when people visit you, the information is current and correct and looks its best (and is consistent with your website, other social channels, business cards, and materials.) Note: It’s also important that when you put your business name in to a Google Search, that you personally visit each and every one of the listings that come up with your information and if possible, control the content listed about you.
3. The most successful companies are those that can effectively engage their audience.
This can be done with welcoming questions and comments and interacting online. One of the best ways to do this is through video. Video can especially help to differentiate you from others in your field as it does something no logo or static post can…adds in personality, warmth, and charm. Video can be used in so many ways and always attracts more attention than any other type of post or information.
4. The most important takeaway is about strategy.
If you are posting each day and not thinking about the bigger picture, you’re not only missing the opportunity to craft the impression you’re giving, you’re wasting time. Plan out a week or month of posts at a time. Sitting down once, instead of once or several times daily, and scheduling or planning posts, saves a lot of time that a busy business owner needs. You’re also less likely to forget something and you’re more likely to hit people during peak hours when your posts will make the biggest impact. If video is part of your strategy, create a month’s worth of video posts at once and schedule in when you’ll go live instead of trying to find moments within the busy week.
We discussed much more than this…differentiation between social channels, how to reuse posts, how best to use ads, and a bit about content marketing. The most important thing to remember when marketing your business is that all of these things are tools. Just like you wouldn’t use a hammer before knowing what you want the project you are making to look like…don’t use social media without goals and a vision of where you’re going and how your goals fit into a bigger strategy. Need help with any or all of that? That’s what we’re here for.