Often times, social media can become a time consuming challenge. If your business is in the start up phase, then you might not have the resources to delegate your social media tasks.
But deep down inside, we are all aware of the power of social media. It's not something that should be treated as a trivial aspect of your business. If your goal is to build a sustainable web presence, then you need to figure out a way to optimize your social media campaigns.
Today, I'm going to share some tactical strategies that can potentially double your social media results in just a fraction of the time. This will inevitably enhance the level of engagement with your fans and also generate more leads into your business.
This is how to do it.
1.) Create A Regimen
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If you are looking for a "quick fix", then social media is not something worth pursuing. The days of utilizing the next "ninja trick" to get on the front page of Google are over. In fact, attempting to outsmart these platforms will likely result in your account getting banned.
Building a reliable traffic source through social media requires persistence and patience. Posting daily to a multitude of social media websites will be detrimental to your overall productivity. Here is why:
- Whenever you get distracted on a particular task, it can take up to 20 minutes for you to come back to where you were initially. If you're constantly taking time out of your day to post on social media, it will hinder your ability to focus on other high valued tasks in your business.
- If you're not utilizing a social media management tool, then you will need to manually log into each website. If you want to cross promote content (IE: post your YouTube video on your Facebook page), then you will have to be logged into multiple websites at once. This can often lead to clutter and turn into a huge waste of time.
A much more efficient strategy is to create your own social media regimen. This is a simple, effective way to post captivating content over the long-term. A solid regimen requires three individual steps:
- Each week, set aside 2-3 hours in your calendar to focus strictly on social media. Create a document that lists the weekly posting frequencies for each of the platforms that you utilize in your business. Keep in mind that some channels may require more content than others. For instance, posting 2-3 times per day is an optimal strategy for Facebook. On the contrary, you might only be able to create 1-2 YouTube videos each week.
- Once you have figured out the posting frequencies, it's time to create your content. By leveraging the faculty of focus, you will be able to produce double the content in less than half the time. Without any distraction, you can think of think of thoughtful, useful content that will resonate with your followers. Social media management tools such as Hootsuite make it simple to schedule out your posts in advance. Just imagine if you had to manually post to Twitter and Facebook in the morning, afternoon, and evening each day. It would drive you to the brink of insanity and impede your overall productivity levels.
- After you have posted your content, it's time for you to monitor the engagement levels of your users. Determining WHAT social media sites to leverage is a critical aspect of your business. However, you need to dig a little deeper and figure out WHEN your audience is engaged. You may notice that your Facebook followers are more responsive in the evening. If this is the case, you should consider posting educational content that drives them to one of your personal web properties. After all, the end state goal of social media is to increase revenue. Analyzing the behavior of your followers will allow you to optimize your content for lead generation.
If you resort to willpower each day, then social media can deceptively take up a huge chunk of your time. Creating a social media regimen will drastically increase the output of your content and decrease the amount of time and effort spent.
2.) The 80/20 Rule
Another integral part of social media is figuring out what content to post. Social media isn't a place to constantly pitch your products and services. In fact, you'll probably run into a bunch of friction from your fans if you even consider doing so.
The goal of social media is to provide useful, thoughtful content. You should always lead by giving, and never confuse your follower for a customer. This will inevitably instill trust in your audience, and entice them to take the next logical step in your marketing sequence.
When you take the time to LISTEN to your audience, you can create content that is congruent with their goals and desires. As you continue to engage, the "marketing" aspect of your social media campaigns will become superfluous. This is the time to present your fans with an opportunity to subscribe to your email list.
In general, roughly 80% of your content should offer value to your followers. But once again, the goal of social media is to convert your fans into prospects. At least 20% of your posts should be focused on lead generation. The best part is, you don't have to resort to "pushy" sales tactics that solicit your readers email address. Instead, you can create educational content that directs them to one of your own web properties, such as:
- A compelling article that includes a banner with a direct call to action. Exit pop-ups are also another effective way to generate leads with blogging.
- A high converting landing page that offers a guidebook or mini course that's aligned with the goals of your reader.
The psychological aspect of social media can cause you to miss out on a ton of qualified leads for your business. Listen to your audience, and then craft your content to accommodate their goals. If you lead with value 80% of the time, your followers will naturally want to learn more from you.
3.) Repurpose Your Content
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One of the biggest advantages of social media is the social dynamic of its users. If you were to email one of your prospects 5 times per day, it would be a virtual certainty that they would unsubscribe from your list. However, if you posted 5 times per day on Facebook, it would enhance the level of engagement with your fans.
The demographics of your audience will vary across each social media channel. Some of your fans will have different schedules, while others will live in different time zones. Regardless of what social media website you use, your content will never reach 100% of your fan base.
So why not repurpose the same material over and over again?
The paradigm of social media encourages the sharing of content. In fact, the odds are that most of your audience will not see your content more than once. Sometimes, it takes several attempts for a post to garner enough likes and shares to go viral.
Repurposing content will amplify your results and save you a tremendous amount of time. If you have a particular article, video, or image that resonates with your audience, don't hesitate to post it every 2-3 weeks. Obviously, you'll want to make some small tweaks to ensure the content has a unique appeal. You can do this by simply modifying the headline and body copy of each post. This requires only a small amount of effort in comparison to the potential traffic it can generate.
Conclusion
The tactical aspects of social media can make it appear more overwhelming than it actually is. If you want social media to be an integral source of traffic to your business, then you can't afford to do it wrong. Posting multiple times on a myriad of channels each day is simply not efficient.
Creating a social media regimen will force you to stay accountable over the long-term. Scheduling your posts will save time and increase the output of your content. Repurposing that content will enhance the level of engagement with your fans and reduce your marketing efforts.
Just like many other aspects of business, social media is all about "working smart." Although these strategies may sound simple, they will have a profound impact on your results.
Do you have a social media regimen that you follow each week?
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