If you find yourself asking ‘What the hell is social media going to do for me?’ I can help.
As a business owner, you have been told 100 times to get your company onto social media. But why should you bother spending time and money on a platform where all people want to do is post pictures of their cat, their adorable kids, or send you 200 requests to play the latest stupid farming game?
Social media is scary. It’s intimidating that your 12-year-old niece knows everything there is to know about hashtags and Instagram, and your knowledge is limited to logging in and out. But your niece probably doesn’t know how to replace the tread on a dozer. If she does – then she should be your favorite niece and you should let her run your social media.
Anyway, it’s all about knowledge. I can teach you how to make your social media a success for your business.
Let’s take a step back and just talk about the basics of social media and how to get your business page started.
Pick Your Social Media
Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat or the latest one that no one has even heard of. So many F%#&*@& options, where do you start? Simple. You need to figure out where your customer base is or which platform do they use?
Here are a couple of quick questions you can ask yourself:
1. What social media platform do you use?
If you are already using facebook, and know how to use it for your personal posts, then it will be easier to use it for your business. Stick with what you know in the beginning. When you are comfortable and then step it up a little with some inexpensive paid ads.
2. Are there like-minded individuals on this platform?
You need to find the platform that your target market uses.
If your target market is women, then you should consider Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Find out where you market hangs out and focus on that platform and your life will be a piece of cake.
There is a ton of research online about which age groups, gender, or interest groups use which social media platform. This chart, for example, may help you narrow down your choices.
Here’s What You Post
Now that you have set up your profiles and figured out where to spend your efforts, what’s next?
It’s time to post. Which brings up more damn questions. The usual ones like when, what and how to post.
When to Post on Social Media
There are a lot of different theories about when you should post, but for starters, think about when you check social media and try to have a post go out sometime around then.
The most important thing to remember here is to be consistent. Post regularly and often. You need to setup a schedule that you can live with and start posting. We will discuss a simple way to schedule later on.
What to Post on Social Media
There are three types of things you are going to want to post:
- Things that interest you that have to do with your target market. If you are trying to get more jobs building pools, post more pictures of beautiful pools.
- Retweet articles and media that your target market may want to look at – new technology in pool cleaning, for example.
- (this is last for a reason) Post things about your company – Sales on pools!
I know that you feel that number 3 is the most important, but if you try to cram a bunch of sales crap in your followers’ feed, your posts lose their effectiveness. Once again, think about what you do to sales posts. SKIP that S#$&!
How to Post on Social Media
We have talked about consistency and having an optimal schedule, but we want to make it simple, right? So, here is a secret. There are tools out there that will make this easy for you.
With services like Hootsuite and Buffer, you can schedule several weeks, even months, of posts. This will make your job very easy. Set aside some time to create your schedule, then you can add to it when you need to. Remember, we are keeping this simple, and this takes a big chunk of work off your plate.
Not the End
Here is the deal, people write full books about this crap and I am trying to cram a bunch of info in a short read. So, maybe these few tips will make it easier to get you a solid foundation to start from.
But wait there’s more.
I’ll be back. This is the first of many in a social media series. I will discuss these topics more in depth in later posts, but this is enough for today. Remember to stay consistent and keep it simple.
