Welcome to the Brand and Demand Solutions’ Marketing Impact Vlog! Today we’re focusing on Social Media Tips for our fellow time-strapped B2B marketers.
Whether you sell widgets, services, or insight, we can guarantee one thing: your customers and prospects are on social media.
In order to both service their needs and drive new business, it’s no longer a matter of how to leverage social media, but WHAT you leverage.
The social-sphere is huge and overwhelming, so we’re here to help you socialize your brand to support your organization in the same way your employees do!
Our first tip is to limit the number of platforms you support.
Supporting every customer or prospect on every platform isn’t realistic or affordable. Instead – it’s imperative that you understand the social persona of your customer base.
For example, if the majority of them use Twitter, LinkedIn and Snapchat, then those are the platforms you should be spending your time and energy leveraging. You’re much better equipped to hire or become an expert on 2 – 3 platforms to fully exploit those channels VS stumble your way through all of them.
TIP: Check Google Analytics to see which platforms funnel the most traffic to your site.
Planning a content calendar to include social.
As we mentioned, Social Media can and will be a huge time suck. Planning a content calendar and including social as part of the equation will save you a ton of time. Take one day per week to schedule all of your posts in advance, but be sure to check in daily to review comments and answer question that may have been posted. If you’re not already using a scheduling tool like Hootsuite or Buffer, what are you waiting for? These tools (most are freemium models) allow you to sync all your social accounts in one view to plan your posts in advance, as well as listen, respond, like or retweet posts.
We know it’s a balancing act, but planning ahead will save you a ton of time, just be sure to continue to check posts daily so your company can respond within 24 hours to any questions or concerns.
But perhaps you are asking: “How do I create enough content to pre-schedule a weeks’ worth in advance?” That’s where content curation comes in. There is a ton of share-worthy content online that is extremely relevant to your business. There’s no reason you can’t share these links, just be sure to give credit to the source. Sharing other people’s work isn’t just a useful way to provide content to your audience — it’s valuable to the community you serve.
TIP: Sign up for Google Alerts to keep tabs on relevant industry content to curate.
Drive Clicks with Captivating Images.
I love Google Alerts, I couldn’t survive without them! But, having a content calendar and curating content doesn’t translate into clicks, which is the reason we’re posting.
You have to do two other things.
1) Include images or video that grabs eyes and
2) a strong caption to take advantage of that photo!
Here’s my quick hit list to creating captivating captions:
– Carefully choose your words; you have limited space to grab attention. Concise and exciting trumps everything else.
– Before you post, read your captions out loud. It will accomplish two goals: alleviate spelling and grammatical errors and verbalize the impact of your caption.
– Avoid the same old stuff. It’s almost Thanksgiving, how many times have you already read – Black Friday Deals? Seriously, you’ll never stand out if you use that caption. But… if you put a spin on it, make it fun or use a pun it will grab eyes.
– Which brings me to my next tip, team review is always best. What’s funny to you might be offensive to someone else, so get a second opinion if you’re headed down that path.
Use Hashtags to Broaden Reach.
Now that we’ve got the caption taken care of, make sure you leverage hashtags in your post to reach a wider audience.
Be sure and research standard industry hashtags and use them is posts where they make sense. It helps customers and prospects find you, but, don’t use too many or create super long hashtags. Use the hashtags that most closely align to your post and move on.
Take Advantage of Polls.
In addition to Hashtags, don’t forget to take advantage of polls functions. It’s an easy way to engage with your community and even gauge interest. People love to share their opinions online.
Leverage customers and industry influencers.
Finally, don’t forget to leverage your best and most engaged customers and industry influencers to comment, like, retweet, or share your posts. They can be your biggest asset in driving social awareness and expanding your reach.
We hope our tips will help you grow your brand and drive demand. Until next time, we encourage to have fun, test these ideas and comment below! If you’ve got ideas or thoughts, we’d love to hear them.
