Taking those first baby steps into social media
If your business is new to social media, developing a social strategy can seem daunting. However, the process does not need to be stressful. The trick is to start small and focus on the basics.
Start with a plan
As with all business projects, you need to have a plan. Define what you are going to do and have a clear set of objectives in place that will guide your activities. Know what you will measure and what success will look like. It is worth developing this plan with the skills of several people involved. It should primarily involve your marketing team, but you should also get input from your sales and business development team so that you can understand operational targets and craft delivery plans in response.
Getting into tactics
Rather than attempting to do everything all at once, focus on a few key social channels first. Research where your customer base is and then build your presence there, whether it’s on LinkedIn for B2B audiences or Facebook or Twitter for B2C audiences.
Develop your voice
Social media success is heavily dependent on having a great on-brand tone of voice and strong messages that resonate with your audience. This creates engagement and will help to extend your brand online. You can work with a copywriter to create great content in-house, and remember that video marketing is also increasingly important, with more consumers than ever now accessing video branded content, especially from mobile devices.
Start conversations
Use images, questions, competitions and teasers to generate conversation and engagement with your brand. Give away prizes and invite customers to give feedback, share funny memes and post advisory videos. Whatever you choose to do activity-wise, make sure you have a social media practitioner on hand to engage with users and have meaningful conversations with them.
Managing social
Remember that you don’t need to do everything in-house. There are plenty of excellent agencies that provide a full mix of digital skills, from SEO and digital strategy to social media experts and web designers in London. A good place to start is to speak to digital strategists responsible for social media and look into designers such as London web design by Vizion Online.
What are your plans in the social media world for 2016?
