The Power of Social Media – Part III

Though it’s important to understand the potential of social media and select the right network for your needs, your digital marketing efforts won’t reap much of a reward if you don’t have a comprehensive strategy. To help you form an effective and productive strategy, and develop your social media presence, here are some of the most important things to consider when putting your social media theory into practice.

Giving away useful information can help build your reputation

While it can seem counter intuitive to give your trade secrets away for free, it really can help to boost your company reputation, make your business appear more trustworthy and help you to become a thought leader within your industry. The more relevant, interesting and informative your content is, the more likely your contacts will be to share and like it.

To get the best results possible, use a combination of the written word and visual media. Infographics, photos, memes, gifs and videos all work really well on social media as they grab the viewer’s attention and are quick and easy to understand. Research has shown that a tweet with an image receives 150% more retweets, Facebook posts with images are nearly 2.5 times more likely to receive likes and shares, and 4 times as many customers would prefer to watch a video about a product than simply read about it.

It’s important to listen

Though posting content is a big part of building a social media network, it’s also important that you pay attention to what’s happening around you. Take a bit of time to listen to what people and businesses in your network are talking about. This will help you to develop a two-way conversation on social media, get to know your target audience and ensure the content you’re posting is relevant to your network.

Listening to your network will also help you to develop your tone of voice – something that will play an important part in developing your company image and brand personality.

Managing social media

In order for a social media strategy to be successful, it needs to be well managed. One of the most useful tools available for managing your posts, tweets and pins is a social media calendar. A calendar will help you to plan your social media output and give your team a useful overview of the type of content you’re posting, your tone of voice and the businesses you’re interacting with.

If you haven’t nominated a single person to manage your social media output, you may want to consider creating a social media protocol. This will help to ensure your team are all on the same page and that everyone knows exactly what your main goals and objectives are for the platform. Alternatively, you might want to use a professional social media consultancy to manage your output for you.

As social media is now such an important part of business, there’s no way we can say everything we need to about the digital tool in just three posts. To find out more about the power of social media, explore our site further or get in touch with a member of our team.