A recap on social media to max your mileage.Are you new to handling social media, or someone who’s simply looking to close some knowledge gaps? In either case, we’re glad you stopped by, as we revisit some of the basics of how you can fully leverage arguably the two most crucial components of your social presence – Twitter and Facebook. What are we waiting for? Let's dive in!
Fuelling Twitter Engagement
When you are on Twitter do you sometimes feel like you are chirping… okay make that tweeting with no one listening? Don’t worry, you’re not alone – it’s easy for your tweet to get lost in the ever-flowing stream that is twitter, and many small businesses are in a constant struggle to increase their engagement on Twitter. Here are five simple strategies to boost your twitter cred.
Reach Out and Reward: If you’re building from a small base, reach out personally to your new followers and start a discussion, even if it’s about their profile. Remember, twitter is more about the interaction and less about being a broadcast platform! Once the base grows, reward folks who engage with you the most, whether it is via a tweet that promotes them, their websites or their content!
Know the Best Time to Post: You could choose to tweet several times a day and measure when your audience is most receptive. Or you could use tools like Tweriod and Followerwonk to do the job for you. Tweriod, for instance, connects to your account and evaluates your followers to discover the best time for you to post out tweets to reach the widest audience. It can tell you when your followers are likely to be online, and when your tweets get the biggest exposure. You could then choose Hootsuite or Buffer to queue up these tweets, even if it’s while you’re sleeping!
Follow the Right Folks: Twitter’s often a two-way game - if you think people ought to follow you, why shouldn’t the same rule apply to you? Don’t be a red carpet tweet – you know, the kind who follow 3-4 people and still expect everyone to follow them! But follow wisely – identify the thought leaders in your industry or folks you respect, and connect with them. You can even find folks you may not even know by searching in Twitter for keywords relevant to your line of work.
Share Images and Media: Videos (Vine) and Twitter images are great for attracting a crowd, and research shows that tweets with multimedia content, whether its image or video, receive four to five times more engagement compared to those without. Go on, don’t be shy!
Watch the Trends: The trick to holding better conversations is in being clued into what’s going on, trend wise. Keep an eye on the top trending topics and get a feel for what folks are talking about. And don’t forget to use your #hashtags, great for people to discover you and your content!
Grow your Facebook Page
It’s one thing creating a page on Facebook and getting everyone you know to like it, and quite another to make your Facebook presence a ‘community’ for your fans. Here are a couple of simple tips to get the most out of your Facebook page.
Content is King: Remember, if your page is useful and your content original, it will be shared. It could be a screenshot of a useful tip, or a behind-the-scenes photo of how your organization works, or even an inspirational quote. Ask yourself while posting each update – will I share this? If you find yourself saying no most of the times, revisit your content strategy, post haste! As a rule of thumb, questions, photos, fill in the blanks work best. And don’t forget – always use a Call-to-Action – a specific objective behind each status update like “Tell us what you think” or “Like this if you agree”.
Cross Promote: One way to rise above the noise is to get page admins from pages similar to yours / catering to your demographic to cross-promote your content, and vice versa. All of a sudden, you get your brand in front of a whole new audience; from a brand they trust themselves. Why stop there? Use your own personal profile to occasionally share your business page content, and while we’re at it, add the "Facebook Like" tools to your website or blog – this makes it easy for people to find your fan page and to "like" it from your site or blog.
Comment as ‘Your Page’: Instead of commenting on other pages with your personal (individual) profile, comment on these pages while you’re signed in as ‘Your FB page’, thereby letting your brand do the talking and building a relationship with potential FB fans.
Run a Contest: If you’ve got a marketing budget to fund a contest, it’s a great way to get several new folks to engage with your brand. Many of the apps that are available for Facebook contests (and you MUST run a Facebook contest through an app) are not too expensive and are easy to set up yourself. If you’re so inclined, you can set up your contest page to ensure that people like your page before they can participate. At the end of the day, you’re the real winner.
Know your Best Times: Much like Twitter, a quick review of your Insights page (under your brand page) can help you determine when your best updates were posted (in terms of total views). In general, three time slots – morning (7-9am), evening (5-7pm) and late night (10pm-12am) - see peaks of Facebook usage. You could either use this to hit a maximum possible audience, or take a contrarian view and post at non-peak times when your content is more likely to stand out. In either case, experiment with your sharing schedule and test and iterate often!