Leaping Ahead Blogging

Leaping Ahead blogs aim to provide relevant and important online media information to its clients.

What do you really want for your Social Media

I'm regularly asked to help people with their social media and of course apart from wanting it done well they also want it done cheaply because they have not really thought through the value that professional social media support can bring. When it comes down to it people are often not really clear about what their business needs and what expectation they have, they send people merrily on their way to 'do social media' and then decide what was being delivered is not what they wanted.

So to help the business owner/manager who needs social media support here are my top tips.

1. WHO IS YOUR CUSTOMER

I know I do belabour this point constantly but if you want to reach out to more of your 'ideal clients' then it is important that you're not reaching out with a shot gun approach aiming at everyone, even those not remotely interested in your product or service. Remember that your social media support costs time and money and more ideal customers are the ones you want to spend money on.

2. WHICH CHANNELS ARE YOU PRIORITISING

I see business owners/managers chasing the latest trend in social media, without even so much as a hint of knowledge about whether the channel is the right one for their business. Why would you chase one channel when your customers are really on another channel? You may want to retain a presence on a number of channels but until you have a strong strategy my advice is to actively post and follow on 2/3 channels as your priority. What happens all too often is that people look at all the channels that are available to them, become confused and/or overwhelmed and stop. It starts to look like an elephant, and eating an elephant is only easy when you eat it in bite sized chunks, attempting to eat the whole thing ... it will squash you and you won't even get started. You may want to retain a presence on a number of channels but until you have a strong strategy my advice is to actively post and follow on 2/3 channels as your priority.

3. NOT ALL CHANNELS ARE EQUAL

A common mistake that people make is to take one message and post it on all channels. It is of course easier, faster, cheaper to just post that one message everywhere but each channel has its own uniqueness

LinkedIn = business users who are not interested in your quotations, dinner or children

Facebook = it is the most popular and overall social media you can post anything you like on a personal page or on a business page or group and no one will really mind or object

Twitter = snapshot news and updates and extensive use of @ and # and it is more about trending and of course if you don't attract attention with the first 140 characters (this is reported to increase) you won't attract any attention. If you're sharing a post that is going on Facebook too, start strong or they will not click through to find out more.

Instagram and Pinterest = people who are visual and if your service doesn't lend itself to visual means and you want to use these channels you have to find ways to engage people and the images need to be good. Hence your posts should have a visual element or it just doesn't work.

Keep in mind your prioritised channels and how you can optimise your posts across all of these.

4. TEST AND RESEARCH

All social media gives degrees of research that helps you understand what is most popular and while you want to do more of this to increase your viral reach, it is also important to vary and test your posts to ensure that your audience doesn't become bored with your posts. If your video posts in the last week didn't get much interest, that may not mean that your audience isn't interested, it may mean that you're not posting what they're interested in viewing. While there are reports that images are the most powerful posts, I have found this to vary across different clients providing different products and services. The only way to be sure is to check your research, insights, statistics, etc. The fundamental evidence is more likes, followers and reach.

5. SOCIAL MEDIA SUPPORT ROLE

So what are you looking for in a Social Media Support Role/Person? Completing the document below will give you greater clarity and even if you are doing the social media yourself, you'll still find it an interesting exercise to see if you are doing a great job for yourself.

Obviously this is just an outline to get you started, think about what you and your business are looking for and what your client is expecting to learn, know, understand and act upon.

Social Media job description

Looking for a Social Media Specialist to ... (attract and interact with our targeted virtual channels and users).

The goal is to ... (develop and grow customer customer engagement, website traffic and revenue by strategically exploiting social media channels).

Responsibilities

  • Build, develop, grow and execute a social media strategy
  • Use competitive research, channel selection, benchmarking, messaging and audience identification
  • Generate, edit, publish and share daily content (original text, images, video or HTML) that builds meaningful connections and encourages community engagement and action
  • Create editorial calendars and syndication schedules in line with seasons and trends
  • Share website content regularly to increase site traffic.
  • Ensure brand consistency across all online media.
  • Moderate all user-generated content and comments in accordance with our policy
  • Continuously improve by reviewing and analyzing the appropriate social data/metrics, insights and best practices, and then acting on the information
  • Communicate and collaborate with other departments (customer relations, sales etc) to manage reputation, upcoming events and trends, and coordinate actions

Requirements

  • Proven working experience in social media or related field
  • Excellent consulting, writing, editing (photo/video/text), presentation and communication skills
  • Demonstrable social networking experience and social analytics tools knowledge
  • Adequate knowledge of web design, web development, CRO and SEO
  • Knowledge of online marketing and good understanding of major marketing channels
  • Positive attitude, detail and customer oriented with good multitasking and organisational ability
  • Fluency in English
  • BS in Communications, Marketing, Business, New Media or Public Relations

Reports to:

This role reports to (owner, communications director, marketing, etc.)

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Friday, 29 March 2024
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