Now more than ever, social media plays a crucial role in building a strong online presence. Social media opens many opportunities to startup and small business owners, and big companies use it to further expand their reach and for customer engagement. While using social media provides plenty of business benefits, managing social media presence can be a challenge, especially if you have several accounts on various platforms.
This article will cover effective ways to help business owners better manage their social media:
#1 Use Social Media Management Software
It’s quite tedious to manually monitor your social media. Just imagine the time and effort it takes to check comments, likes, shares, Tweets, performance, and other social media activities. Fortunately, social media management platforms come in free and paid versions. One popular example of this type of platform is Hootsuite.
Hootsuite provides a wide range of features and benefits that help businesses in managing their social media accounts. Many social media managers use this platform to schedule posts, curate cool content, manage team members, and measure return on investment (ROI). Hootsuite also offers different plans, such as single-user plans and customized business accounts suitable for larger organizations.
While Hootsuite is a very popular and useful social media management tool, the price can be hard on the pocket for some. Conveniently, Hootsuite alternatives are available that come in lower subscription cost and even free ones.
Here are the advantages of using social media management software:
- Social Media Scheduling: Social media posting requires the right timing. You want to ensure that you’re posting when your target audience is online so that they can see your post. Hence, by using social media management software, you can easily schedule your posting at your most convenient time.
- Social Media Monitoring: It’s tedious to monitor multiple accounts and various interactions manually. Using a social media management platform can make monitoring a lot easier, allowing you to track important data, such as likes, followers, and new mentions.
- Social Media Analytics: Social media management software programs come with analytics functionalities. This means that you can easily check your performance over time. This way, you get to compare each of your social media account’s performance all in one place.
#2 Create A Game Plan
The social media world is a competition, so you need to have a great game plan. Many businesses want to win the hearts of social media users because of its promising business benefits. If you have a guideline to follow, you’ll never lose track and stay in the game.
Check these helpful tips when creating a game plan for your social media:
- Monitor Your Competitors: Investigate how your competitors manage their social media. Monitor how often they publish posts and what content they publish.
Also, conduct industry research to know the number of contents you should publish daily on each channel. It also helps if you build your social media marketing campaign to boost your other sales and marketing efforts.
- Assign A Responder: It’s a good idea to assign a social media responder to monitor and post on each channel. This way, you can provide a personalized experience to your followers and prospects.
- Create A Troubleshooting Resource: Handle common complaints and bugs as they arise in a timely manner by creating a troubleshooting library. If the problem requires confidential information and needs further investigation, make sure that people can contact you through email support, a private message, or your helpline number.
#3 Use Social Media As Customer Service
Think of social media as an opportunity to show how awesome your company treats customers. Avoid brand detractors by addressing negative feedback with patience and respect. You can also use social media messaging features to answer customers’ questions, introduce new offers, and extend customer appreciation.
#4 Follow Rule Of The Thirds
Sharing content shows your followers that you’re collaborative, you know your niche, and you know where you’re positioned in the industry.
So, what do you need to share using the ‘Rule of Thirds’? Share posts following this rule:
- Sharing 1/3 social media posts to convert readers, promote your business, and generate profits
- Sharing 1/3 social media posts of personal stories in order to build your brand.
- Sharing 1/3 social media posts of your industry influencers’ ideas.
#5 Manage One Social Media Channel At A Time
Regardless of your business’ size and niche, it’s important to manage one social media channel at a time. By doing so, you can concentrate on the things that need to be done on each channel to positively impact your target social media users. For instance, you can focus on diversifying your social media content by publishing infographics, videos, high-quality photos, and other audio content.
Facebook and Instagram appear to be overly saturated with ads. So, you may also consider diversifying the social media channels you use in promoting your brand, such as TikTok, which, in the US alone, is projected to reach 45.4 million users in 2020.
Feel free to use whatever social media network you feel suitable for your business. You don’t need to create a profile across all channels. Doing so will just make social media management a lot more challenging. Choose ones that can better promote your brand where your target audience is mostly seen. Once you’ve made a choice, make sure to dedicate time to monitor each.
Here are some tips on how to effectively manage each social media channel:
- Set a daily or weekly schedule to monitor your accounts
- Use the right social media tools
- Delegate tasks as necessary to ensure you don’t miss anything
- You can recycle posts but don’t overdo it
Conclusion
You can manage your business’ social media better by using a reliable social media management platform. Social media management software programs eliminate the manual tasks of monitoring performance, publishing posts, and other social media activities.
Create a game plan to prepare your team to address bugs, negative feedback, and customer complaints. You can use social media as a form of customer service to connect to more prospects and customers and improve their experience. Also, make sure to avoid flooding the walls of social media channels by following the ‘Rule Of Thirds.’
