Don’t be misled by the title. Don’t go thinking this is going to be an entirely negative post. Don’t believe that this post will completely turn your social media strategy on its head. Most importantly, don’t ignore everything you’re about to read on this page. A social media strategy can often turn in to a big game of “Do’s and Don’ts”. Questions like ‘why don’t customers engage on our profiles?/ why don’t I get more visits from social sources? Why don’t I focus on social links to more?’ will drive you in a spiral of don’ts you’ll never get out of.
Here at Boyd Digital we don’t overlook about the significance of a social media strategy for any client. It doesn’t matter what field the client is in, if there is a niche to use social media that their competitors haven’t got a hold on yet, you can bet we don’t waste any time formatting an efficient strategy.
But what do you need to be doing when you get ready to carry out a social media strategy. Don’t read on if you don’t want to find out.
DON’T UNDERESTIMATE DEVELOPMENT
The platform (Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest etc) is already there and you can trick yourself in to thinking the building blocks are all in place, but unless you actually make use of that profile you’re going to have a bare looking profile. You need to know your audience and what they like. Build your profile up steadily and keep the the social media strategy running alongside your business goals. It is all too easy to get absorbed in social interaction but it might not have as big a pay off as goals you need for the main site.
DON’T UNDERESTIMATE YOUR RESOURCES
People are inquisitive creatures. For example, if you ran a wood floor business you’d want to be sharing relevant information on floor care, removing stains etc. If you ran a salon, it would be foolish not to upload photos of your clients new ‘dos (just look at any tattooist page to see a good example of this). You want to plan that seed of inspiration in a prospective customers’s mind before even telling them where you come in to help.
DON’T MISMANAGE YOUR CONTENT
If you’re someone who likes to plan ahead, you can create a stockpile of content and schedule it to post on chosen dates. There are dozens of programs and plugins available for your site, Hootsuite being the most well-known of these. Timing a post for when you know most eyes will see it can be very beneficial. You can read about the importance of timing social posts in this blog we wrote a few months ago.
DON’T FORGET ABOUT YOUR GOALS
A few weeks ago here in Glasgow there was a complaint posted on a hostel’s Facebook page. It quickly blew up and was featured on a number of news sites and even Buzzfeed got in on the action. As you can see form the picture above, it actually sort of helped the small business get listed in SERPs, but don’t go mistaking yourself that your social channels are going to act as the Customer Complaint section. Make sure your social profiles focus on your USP and always try to provide some sort of call to action when they’re needed.
DON’T FORGET TO OPTIMISE
Brand as much as you can. Whether it means spending 10 minutes taking a high quality cover photo or making sure that you have your icon make the basis of a YouTube video, putting your stamp on content not only looks good, it signifies you mean business.
DON’T FORGET IT CAN HAPPEN ON SITE
Social networks can come and go (Hello MySpace & Bebo), your site doesn’t. We’ve been reading Niall Harbison’s book Get Shit Done and fully agree with his point that your site should have a blog that will have sufficient content to share with a wider audience. It also helps add some character to your site and social strategy too.
DON’T FORGET TO KEEP AN EYE ON IT
When you go between using your social profiles professionally and personally, you can be easily forgiven for letting the upkeep slip. Monitoring social visits can seem difficult but it is extremely easy. Here in the office we use a very simple method to monitor this. On a whiteboard we have the number of social visits this site got over the last three months. Nothing more than a number in a visible area. Everyone who walks by will see it and its a quick reminder that the latest number always needs to be higher than the number preceding it. No comparing emails Facebook analytics send out. No giving in to ‘boost post’ notifications. Just a number on a board that only needs to get a little bigger day by day.
And if there’s one reminder when carrying out a social strategy, make sure you don’t do what Donny Don’t does! Quoting The Simpsons can do no wrong.