Manage Your Social Media Platforms!

In our busy work environment maintaining the right level of social media engagement may seem a

daunting proposition. Choosing the correct social platforms for your business and managing them

requires clear strong decisions about your business direction and a cohesive plan to roll them out.

Your social media engagement should be driven by your business goals and marketing objectives and

by the nature of the audience your want to interact with.

1. Choose the platforms that suit your business. New social media platforms emerge regularly,

and there's usually a strong bandwagon effect after each launch. And of course early

adopters and enthusiasts are always singing the praises of their personal favourites. But

neither individuals nor organizations should join a social media platform just because

someone says you should, or because it seems like the latest new thing. Once you get into it,

there is no magic about social media. So get confident in using one platform at a time.

2. Don’t just talk about yourself. It’s important to show your value and highlight your offerings,

but too much self-focused content can be a big turn off. Don’t see social media as just a big

megaphone to blast your audience. Find out how to participate in conversations on social

media and share information and ideas without constantly asking them to buy!

3. Plan your social program to suit your resources. If you try to engage on too many platforms

you will find that it’s almost impossible to maintain the engagement required without

increased and/or dedicated resources. Develop a clear sense of what you’re going to share on

each platform, as well as how often and when, and make sure your social media engagement

plan can be easily maintained given available resources. One of the biggest mistakes

businesses make is to leave the social media part of the business to junior staff, on the basis

that they know how it works. This may be the case but the business owner and senior

management know the business, its products and services, and the marketing plan to drive

the desired outcomes.

4. Don’t be too loud. Many early adopters and enthusiasts (over)share too much on all kinds of

platforms. Don’t feel pressured to be a big talker on any social media platform. Say enough to

be heard, but focus more on saying things your audience wants to listen to. Do not engage in

cluster posting where you post several items in quick succession on a single platform.

5. Understand your platform options. Each platform has its own language, customs, and

normative expectations. If you participate without learning what sound social media

engagement practices look like you run a serious risk of undermining your credibility. This can

not only affect your social media standing but your overall business reputation.

6. Volume of activity varies for different platforms. There is a much higher tolerance for a high

volume of shares on a fast-moving platform like Twitter (up to 10 per day for most individuals

and organizations). The acceptable volume of status and sharing activity on Facebook and

Google+ is probably no more than half of what’s acceptable on Twitter and on LinkedIn one

individual status or company update per day is probably plenty.

7. Cross posting. Because you are likely to have a different network/followership on each

platform, you need to cross-post to ensure your content reaches the maximum possible

audience. But if people see the same content several times in a short period of time, it’s

more likely to be off-putting than enticing. You can write a post and then edit and customise

for each of your social platforms before posting. This allows you to take a base message and

cross post it while still offering unique content that fits each social network and most

importantly saves you time. Your goal should be to provide content that connects with your

audience and engages them in conversation on each platform.

One of the reasons that social media is so important is because people are using social media

platforms to talk about the things that they do every day and the brands and businesses that they

interact with on a daily basis. Engaging customers in social media not only allows for a more

intimate relationship with them but also converts their enthusiasm into support for your products

and services.

If you’re not on social media, if you’re not part of the conversation, then you literately start to

become invisible to the people who are having the conversations on that platform. Your customers

are chatting about you and your products on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social platforms,

so capture their energy and turn it to your advantage. Put social

media at the core of your customer-engagement strategy.

Cape Byron Marketing

Byron Bay NSW 2481

PH: 02 6628 4199

email: success@capebyronmarketing.com.au