by By: Darin Shelstad
Here are some pointers to get you going in the right direction:
- Use social media wisely and ensure your strategy tackles challenges. Don’t just dive in head first and begin spamming posts of cats because it’s popular. Figure out what your company needs or is struggling with and create a strategy around that. A good starting point would be to do extensive monitoring and research on your brand. Find out what people think, and how they are connected to your brand. Only then can you begin to formulate a strategy.
- Don’t be afraid to not use certain platforms – you can’t be everything to everyone. Each social media platform’s audience lives and behaves differently within its own borders. Facebook has a plethora of users and can help drive website traffic and brand awareness. Twitter also has a multitude of users but its sheer quantity of messages and posts dwarfs Facebook. Twitter gives you an opportunity to seek out issues people are having with your brand and turn the situation around resulting in a win-win for the customer and brand. Twitter also allows you to very easily connect with your audience and boost customer service. Linkedin on the other hand is treated more professionally by its users. People don’t casually scroll through Linkedin when bored the way they do Facebook, so it is important to keep these differences in mind.
3. Make your posts count. Asking questions is a great idea since people will inherently want to answer it. By asking your audience a question, they’re enticed to reply. Throwing in a little humor every now and again doesn’t hurt either. This drives engagement. Also don’t forget that tone is key. Your audience doesn’t want to feel talked at, rather talked with. Using conversational language is important because you won’t have people feeling left out or that the post wasn’t meant for them. Being too overly professional can cause you to come off as inauthentic.
4. Lastly, look to the future. Keep an eye out for current trends, find out what works and what doesn’t work anymore. Through research and monitoring you can potentially start riding the next new trend’s wave, putting yourself ahead of the competition.
Instagram – @darin.s
Twitter – @drnshlstd
I certainly agree with your blog post here. With a vast variety of social media platforms, I think some brands and organizations forget that people interact with each one differently. I often see brands posting the same thing to Twitter as they do to Facebook, and strongly believe that although there may be a time and place for this – it is often better to consider creating unique posts for each platform. Far too often these posts are useless comments that do not engage the audience at all. One of the most prominent reasons I will un-follow a brand on social media is because their posts are talking at me instead of conversing with me.
Darin,
Your blog post was very interesting and informational. You mentioned it is okay to use humor in your posts occasionally. Do you think you should only limit humor to your personal social media accounts or do you think it is okay for companies to use humor in posts? How can you draw the line between something that is a joke and something that is offensive?