Social media, used correctly and with the right things in place, can elevate your brand and reach new customers. What many business owners do not realize until they have exhausted themselves is that other tools need to be in place before you start posting.
There are three goals for social: listening, engagement and SEO. The secret is to start at the beginning. There is no shortcut to viral fame by posting cat videos. First, examine your website, because it can make or break the effectiveness of every social campaign.
Questions to answer first
- How was your website built, and on what content management system? How do you access the back end?
- Are you selling physical or digital goods online? Do you need a cart?
- How are you adding quality content consistently? Do you have a blog?
- How much traffic does the site get, and does it point users to your social channels? If you cannot answer, you need analytics set up.
- Is the site mobile responsive and easy to use on every device?
There is no reason to send people on a digital journey to your website only to find it does not work or cannot convert them. Before going all in on social, every business owner needs:
- A website that is easy to manage and update.
- A secure site, free of threats to you and your users.
- A proper e-commerce solution if you sell something.
- A blog. Without one, I would not bother going into social at all.
- High-quality content and collateral (stories, tips, educational copy, photos, video) for the site and future campaigns.
- A responsive theme and internal linking that makes content easy to find and consume.
Connect the other channels
Consider email, print, even telemarketing. Everything is connected, and you want cohesive branding so your audience gets a clear picture of who you are. Watch your analytics to see where people come from and reshape campaigns to lower ad cost and maximize return.
Then keep building content your audience finds interesting and put it on your website, so when you do start using social, every post points back home. Follow this for every goal: recruitment, sales, branding, sharing.
Very few businesses get this omnichannel approach right, which is why it is usually in the owner's interest not to waste time on social. Done in the wrong order, you will not get a return. Even if posts collect likes, you may have lost the chance at a deeper, longer-lasting connection.
When you are ready
Once the strategy and digital presence are sorted, use social to listen and engage. Hold back the urge to sell, sell, sell. Help and educate your audience on the problem your product solves, so they see your brand as helpful and trustworthy.
You will eventually tire of logging into each account to post and pull data. Buffer and Hootsuite are both easy to use and affordable. Hootsuite's listening tool matters: you should know what people say about your business online. When a negative review arrives, address the concern rather than argue about who was right. Too many bad reviews and it becomes hard to prove your brand has good ethics.
Original, high-quality content promotes engagement, loyalty and interest. Everything else is downstream of that.
Done in the wrong order, social media loses you the deeper connection it was supposed to create. Build the foundation first.
Originally published on LinkedIn on February 17, 2017. Read the original and the comments.
