How do you make social media work for your business? When was the last time you visited a business page on Facebook, that you liked? What are the chances of it showing up in your news feed? Will Facebook’s EdgeRank Algorithm find it worthy enough to show it in the news feed of the followers?
With more and more networking sites joining the social bandwagon, there is a plethora of information available to the users in the form of tweets, photos, videos and blogs. There are innumerable brands offering products to the customers. But can these brands keep their users engaged? Are they utilising social media’s potential to its fullest?
Social media is based on relationships and interactions which can bring value to these associations. It is not uncommon to see that platforms like Twitter etc are being used to spam inbox email, LinkedIn messages, Twitter messages etc. And, to their utter dismay, businesses realise that these efforts were futile?
Instead of working for them, it is one of the reasons which is driving the traffic away from a business. So what really works? When a business hops on to any social network, be it Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc , what does it set out to achieve? More likes, shares, fans? But do they ensure that you meet the business goals?
The key is to align your business goals with what your customers want. Make them want to connect with you by providing them something of value. It is the quality that will build long lasting organic relationships which will ensure sustained business.
For any organisation, the content should reflective of the brand it stands for. It should contain all key messages and help achieve business objectives. For the target audience, the content should be able to engage them in meaningful interactions. They should want to action upon it when it appears in their feeds on social platforms.
There has to be social media content optimisation. An experimental approach to creating digital assets with different permutations and combinations of variables such as formats, messages, publishing schedules and platforms can be adopted. Tools such as Facebook insights and third party tools can help understand, which variables work best for achieving the organisation’s objectives. Though, it is a time consuming exercise and may not yield immediate precise results, but it can definitely help making informed decisions for creating an engaging and high performing social media presence in the long run.
Here are some tips which businesses should bear in mind while creating a content strategy aligned with social media:
- Keep abreast of all the Facebook changes/ updates
- Make use of the new Google Analytics Social Reports to understand how users respond to business’s content
- Use hashtags to help users find your content
- Use infographics in your content
- Know the developments in social media. For example, Twitter’s lead generation cards
- Have a mobile friendly website
- Find the most apt social network which your customers prefer
- Outsource content development, if need be, for your business to maintain and grow its social presence
- Use visuals or photos to make content interesting and worth sharing
- Ask questions to the customers to engage them and use the feedback to understand what they want and which areas can you expand into.
- Maintain brand consistency from platform to platform
- Use social media to promote in person events to keep the users looking out for more
- Use writing tools to provide tips for online content
- Make the content consumer centric which is informative as well as interesting