If you have your own enterprise or if you are running a small & medium business, you should be spending at least 60 minutes per day on your different social network and you should post content on all of them, every day and more than once a day, depending on the industry and the social media platform. You are probably thinking that it’s already tough just to find time for lunch so how the heck will you be able to spend 1 hour of your day promoting your business on social media and how will you find the time to get the inspiration just to know what content to post?
On top of that, if marketing is not your expertise, this whole thing about social media becomes, even more, an area of anxiety. Using social media in a business context can become overwhelming.
In today’s world, it is impossible to avoid using social media in your marketing mix. Not only for lead generations, but it also contributes towards solidifying your brand, creates awareness amongst your target audience and differentiate your business from competitors.
Here are 4 steps that will help you get your feet wet in digital marketing.
1. Block time in your agenda
This might sound very basic but it is our first recommendation. Like you book a time to work on projects, block time in your calendar every day, to manage your social networks. Ideally, start your day with it. The most important thing is that you do not only want to like and scroll down. If you are at your first steps in social media for your business, start with simple things like sharing content that is relevant to your business. Always add a comment with your share, it gives some credibility and helps to build the awareness of your business and yourself as a leader.
2. Plan your content in advance
Before the month begins, plan your content. Here are the things you should be thinking about and that will help you finding content:
a) Find one theme for each week: Focus on that theme for your daily post. That will help you get creative and will give consistency to your posts.
b) Vary your content to avoid sounding repetitive. Even though you want to be consistent, you do not want to be redundant. Here are a few examples of different content to post:
- Picture of a new product
- Picture of event that your business has attended or organized
Sharing a blog article or an article relevant to your business. Find a few sites that are interesting for your industry and take the habit to look at them every day. You will find content to share at your fingertips. - Sharing a quote that is relevant to your mission. There are tones of sites where you can find quotes on different topics, ready to be posted.
It doesn’t have to be something you create every day. The key thing is to populate your pages with content relevant to your business.
You can use the daily theme like the most commonly known “Throwback Thursday”. Every day has its own and being aligned with it will guide you in finding content.
Here is a good link where you can see about the daily theme and that provides great hints & tips to help you develop your content:
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/8-social-media-content-ideas-for-marketers/
c) Gain in productivity and program your posts. If you are at ease with online tools, you can use a platform like Hootsuite to program your posts. That will ease your life incredibly. After your monthly planning is done, you program your posts for every day and boom…you are off the hook for the month! However, you might be off the hook for finding content but still, take time every day to capture traffic on your sites. You want to answer, interact and capture the opportunities. That is why you are doing all those efforts!
3. Understand how to use each platform
There are many different social media platform and it is important to exploit not only Facebook and LinkedIn but the ones like Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube. Each one has its own vocation and is used to drive different objectives.
Here is a great cheat sheet illustrating what kind of content to develop for each social media:
http://www.visualistan.stfi.re/2016/05/top-social-media-platforms-cheat-sheet.html?sf=zpbdepy#ab
As each platform is used for a different purpose, their audience is different and so is their behaviour. Therefore, choosing the right time in the day and in the week to maximize the visibility of your post is key. Here is a good link that will help you to know when you should post on each of the different social media:
http://coschedule.com/blog/best-times-to-post-on-social-media/
4. Outsource
There are many marketing agencies available to outsource your digital marketing and that can bring significant value to your business. This investment will generate incremental revenue in the long run.
The most value of a marketing agency is global expertise. It will bring more value than finding, developing and managing content. A marketing agency with strong skills will bring the digital marketing strategy to another level by addressing other key aspects such as:
SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
You might have heard the terms SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (pay per click). Both are ways to increase traffic on your site & social media. One is free (SEO) and one is payable (PPC). Without falling into a 101 course for each, let’s say that a marketing agency will recommend keywords you should use in your content, to increase the organic search (ensure your target customers find your business when they search for a solution to the problem they are trying to solve). The marketing agency can also recommend a strategy where you pay for using some keywords to increase targeted traffic beyond organic search. By paying a certain amount per click and optimizing the ad campaign to increase relevancy, your ad appears higher on the page when your targeted audience uses the keywords you have paid for and click on the links. Although SEO activity does not have a direct cost associated, it requires a good website with easy user navigation and optimum experience along with a strong SEO strategy to reach your target visitors and drive conversions/leads. Marketing agencies can help you with that. It will also help you analyze the traffic to your site & social network pages and make the required adjustments.
Blog articles & digital forums
An excellent way to increase awareness of your business is to write blog articles. That can also be time-consuming and even if you have a certain ability to write, a blog has its own structure so you can gain benefits to give that responsibility to a marketer that has the experience. There are many digital forums or sites your business can be on to share its blog or put ads on. A marketing agency can find the best ones you should be on and maintain a regular presence for you.
Blog articles also require SEO strategy; the marketing agency will use the right keywords to maximize the visibility of your article. This way, not only you have relevant blog articles but you are reinforcing your brand in your target market.
Strategic content
Behind impactful content, there are thinking and strategy. A marketing agency will provide you with content that will help your business to capture opportunities in these three (3) buyer’s stages:
a) Awareness: Position and reinforce your brand. This content will make your targeted audience realize that your business can provide the solution/products they are looking for.
b) Decision making: The content at that stage is different than the content you will develop to create awareness. The marketing agency will propose a variety of content with the goal of making the buyers decide to purchase from you.
c) Purchasing: Once the buyer is decided, you want to ensure they will contact you. A good marketing agency will submit several content pieces allowing you to get solid leads.
Digital marketing is fun and brings a great value to your business. If you feel you are running out of time and ideas to tackle it effectively, take the time to evaluate how delegating that piece of the puzzle can help to bring your marketing to another level while you are focusing on your core business. There are plenty of options out there! Need help with digital marketing for your business? Contact us now to get a free recommendation from industry experts!
