Social media isn't going anywhere so ... if you've been wondering how to get on board and how to use social media, the time is now.
How to start:
Develop a brand plan, a brand voice and start building your content calendar.
What is your plan? Your plan is how often you plan on posting, where you are going to post and how you manage to operate and respond to our page, but don't leave out your objectives to engage the community.
Building brand awareness:
Brand awareness can be a valuable tool to building a reputation and creating a loyal client base. Your audience will become familiar with your brand and recognize you in your field, keeping you top of mind when your audience is looking for your product/service.
Content:
What should you post? Your audience is savvy, they know you have something to sell but they don't want to be sold to all of the time. Provide information, content, tap into their lifestyle so that when they want to buy they want to buy from you, not because you have told them to buy from you constantly.
Listen to your audience, see what they are talking about, read their posts. Don't hop on all of the trends but seek those that fit into your overall voice and content calendar.
Pay attention to seasons and holidays, events, lifestyle timing. All of these factors can help you create content and develop your strategy.
Use, but don't abuse, your hashtags. Use the hashtags that are relevant, current and tied back to your overall brand voice.
Engage:
A lot of companies use a push out strategy, meaning they only post without going to engage in the community or audience. Get out there, comment, share, like posts that your company enjoys, that tie to your company (ie: pet store should be engaged with local pet events).
Talk to your audience and respond to their comments. Corporations are made up of people, use that to your advantage.
Social media can be an incredible tool for managing your brand reputation, managing your client comments and discovering operation areas of improvement.
Once your audience sees that you care about what is being said, addressing, making changes and working to enhance the overall experience with your company, they become more loyal and advocates for your efforts. No one is perfect, here is our chance to be human.
Crisis management is nothing any one wants to talk about but social media can be a tool to mitigate any issues that occur. Open, transparent and honest communication during a crisis can help alleviate any issues from escalating.
Finally, have fun in your client engagement, have fun with your audience, use humour if it works, sass if it makes sense, but stay true and make sure that your entire team is on the same page.
Julie Boake
Awedity Creative