Does your head start to spin when you think about maintaining your social media presence? It can be a little overwhelming to think about, but it’s a lot easier in the long run if you stick to your plan.
When we begin a campaign or start a new social media platform, we generally have a plan in mind (and hopefully, the plan is also somewhere in writing). Whether it’s to build notoriety and establish industry positioning or attract new customers to a particular product, there should be a plan in place to help accomplish the goals and results.
It goes without saying that we have to bring our brand and product information to customers in as many ways as possible. Social media is a great way to spread the word quickly, easily, and to a wide and ever-expanding audience. The only way to keep the attention of our audiences is to make it easy for them to find us, follow us, and continue following us.
We all want more followers and we all want to see our numbers and stats rise throughout the process, but if we focus just on stats, we risk losing focus on the reason we’re in social media to begin with: Our customers.
We know our business, our brand, our products, and our lingo inside and out, but our customers aren’t as interested in the technicalities as we are. Our customers really just want to know what’s in it for them.
For that reason, user experience is gaining as much importance in social media arenas as it has in areas such as content creation and design.
You’ll only maintain a successful social media presence if you prioritize your followers. In other words, you have to feature information that they want – not just what you want to communicate – and you have to provide it in easy-to-use formats.
How? By planning everything around your followers and customers.
Push Their Buttons
Your priority is to feature “Like” “Follow” buttons so people can, well, Like and Follow your brand. But once they’ve Liked and Followed, you have to show them what else they can do now that they’re on your site or at your page.
Provide easily identifiable “Share” buttons in multiple locations throughout your sites so visitors can move from one venue (i.e., your blog) to another (i.e., a social media site where they share your information).
Visitors don’t want to have to hunt all over the place to find where to search for information within your site. Make sure they can find exactly what they need when they need it, and make it easy to save and share the information once they’ve found it.
Be Suggestive
Not only do you want to lead your horses to water, but you want to show them exactly how to drink once they’re there. You have to provide calls to action and next steps at every stage – don’t just assume your visitors are going to take the initiative to do things on their own
•• Suggest that they share your posts.
•• Direct them to sign up for your weekly specials.
•• Show them where they can go for more information.
•• Give them reasons to visit your other sites and/or social media venues both now and on an on-going basis.
Get Picky
O.K., so you know you have to make it easy for people to use your sites and pages, but you also have to cross-promote your various venues to increase traffic and spread the word to potential new followers and customers.
When creating a post, you really need to pick a platform and optimize the post for that platform. Don’t just re-post the same thing over and over.
Re-format posts using different copy and links as needed so that the posts can be viewed and/or related to in that platform. Your Twitter followers don’t want to have to migrate over to Instagram (and possibly deal with signing in separately) to see what you’re linking to in their Twitter feed. Similarly, consider the Facebook user who doesn’t have an Instagram account. Some of them may be able to view your post, but some may not. Those who are unable to go where you’re directing them may become frustrated and leave.
Consider providing options for links to your site or to other social media venues so followers can pick where they want to go. And again, make sure to show them how to get there, and what to do next once they’re there!
Putting your followers and customers first is the key to staying on top of your social media game. By prioritizing your followers, you become a priority to them and that’s always a win/win scenario.
Looking for ways to win big at your social media game? Our team can help!
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