7 Tips on How to Manage Social Media

Written by guest blogger, Wendy Bryant.

Are your social efforts taking too much time? Are you struggling to find content, manage posting and justify your time? Remember, social is like any other channel you’re already using. You first need a plan and strategy. Would you execute a direct marketing campaign or ad campaign without a target, plan or strategy?

1. Strategy & Plan – create a strategy and plan. It doesn’t need to be as comprehensive as your yearly  marketing plan. Your social strategy is just like all the other channels you use to drive your marketing efforts.  It should roll up to the overall marketing and communications strategy. Don’t get caught up in creating a complicated strategy.  A strategy is simply an idea that grows into a larger concept.

For example, if one of your strategies is to position your company as a leader and expert, this should drive some of what you do in the social space. Maybe a company blog is the answer or perhaps you have a team of experts at your company that can “share” the blog duty. Having a strategy and plan for social will produce better results and provide you with the process of eliminating some not so great ideas.

2. Market Research – You’ve written your strategy and plan…now what? Ask yourself these questions so you can determine what social strategies/platforms are right for your business and your company:

1. Who is your target audience?
2. What are the demographics? Age?
3. Buying decision? Geographical preference?
4. Is your company a B2C model?
5. Are you selling directly to other businesses (B2B)?
6. Do you have a product or products to market?
7. How do your customers find you?
8. What is your  competition doing?
9. How do your customers communicate?

I’m not proposing you go out and conduct complex marketing research. Not all companies cannot afford such efforts, but you should be able to answer these questions to determine how your customers communicate, listen, buy and refer.

3. Social Platforms – Your choice of social platforms depends largely on the type of business your company is in and whether you are producing a product or service.  If you are unsure hire a marketing consultant or consult with your creative agency. Make sure you are thinking through what makes sense for your business. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

4. Company Blogs – Any B2C or B2B business should be able to have a company blog. There are hurdles for regulated industries but for the most part this is a common platform.  Blogs for B2B can be very effective at communicating expertise and education. B2C businesses use company blogs to showcase their expertise around how they develop products or perhaps tell clients about trends in their industry that can influence buying decisions. A word of caution on a blogging: share the duty; do not place the responsilbility of blogging on one person. Create  a team of people who can be held accountable and will produce meaningful content.

5. Video – Videos are a great way to demonstrate visually what your company does.  I just watched this one recently. The video called, “Will the iPad blend” has over 4 million views on You Tube.  We can’t all go “viral” but think about how you can cleverly showcase what your company is doing. Think outside the box. Remember to always test your idea with this simple question: “Why should I care?”  You need to be creative and think about what your client cares about, how you can link into their thought process and get in front of them.

6. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – All are widely used platforms.  My advice is to make sure they “fit” your target audience.

7. Social Management Tools – There are many tools that help you manage content on platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Try Hootsuite– you can post across all three networks, schedule content and manage lists.  Tweet Deck is a free tool specific to Twitter which manages content for Twitter only. I like Hootsuite because it works across multiple platforms. If you haven’t been able to attend an event with Guy Kawasaki on social then fit it in. He is an expert in the space and will be able to provide you with ideas to help manage your content, build up a following and tell the world what your company is doing.

If your social initiatives are proving to be time draining go back to your strategy and plan.  Social should be manageable just like all your other channels. Remember: always be testing. Good marketers are continuing to test the waters , try out new ideas and tweak what they are doing.