Quick and Dirty: Easy Solutions to Managing Social Marketing

Why do we need solutions for managing social marketing? Social media isn’t work, right? I mean that’s what we do for fun while we stand in line for groceries or after work. It’s selfies and food pics of your latest waffle creation, no worries?

If you’re a business owner or entrepreneur and you know how wrong that is. There’s profile pictures, and web banners, formats, JPGs, and there’s something you probably ought to be doing with hashtags to make your social media pop. We live in the era of social media, and it is a great way to reach new customers and retain old ones. The goal is to build relationships that will bring in cash flow, but the devil’s in the details, and it’s not as easy as you might think.

Though it might actually involve those waffle selfies.

Getting Started with Managing Social Marketing

It’s impossible to do everything. You could be on Tik Tok and Snapchat and Insta, and YouTube, and Facebook and…. It’s not worth it. You don’t need to be on all the platforms. If your comfortable with 1 or 2 master those first. Depending on your business, almost everyone is on Facebook, but LinkedIn, Instagram or YouTube might be a good second venue.

You may not want to be on YouTube for your social media, but it’s a great source of information about every sort of topic you might need to know in order to get your social media started. You can Google any questions you might have on topics like “exactly what size should my LinkedIn banner be?” and “How do I link my Facebook page with my Instagram Account?” All the world’s knowledge is on the internet, you just have to take the time to find it.

Make Your Social Media Match

Once you’ve chosen the social media platforms you’re going need to make sure your social media profiles all match and are filled out with same featured image, that your logo matches, that your colors are the same and that all of that matches your website and in-person branding. If you don’t yet have a consistent brand image, you might want to take the free Brand Archetypes quiz to help you figure out what you should focus on.

It’s really easy to just do social media a bit here, a bit there and have it all end up looking like that’s exactly how it was done. Here’s a list of all the things you should think about when you’re setting up your platforms and getting ready to make content:

• Use your logo or a headshot of you as your avatar
• Use your logo and business name as your banner
• Fill out your Google business listing
• Think about your brand’s voice and use words that match
• Make sure your website address is on everything
• Include calls to action in your content
• Use branded and curated hashtags
• Chose 1-3 fonts and ONLY USE THOSE
• Pick 2-5 colors and learn their hex codes so you get a perfect match
• Create a brand guide with all this stuff in one place

For Managing Social Marketing, Plan Ahead

Just to let you know, you should be posting on social media 5 days a week. I wouldn’t recommend actually spending time every day posting on social media, it can eat up time like crazy. Social media marketing should be a campaign and it needs to be planned and strategic to be effective.

In order to make it strategic, you should create a content calendar for your whole year. Pick a monthly theme that suits your business. It could wrap around different products, seasonality, colors, or services. Everything in that month should reflect that theme. Next, decide what your weekly schedule will be. That way you know that on Mondays you post testimonials, Tuesdays are tips, Wednesdays are quotes, or even, if you’re in the restaurant industry, waffle selfies.

If you create a content calendar and stick to it, you will know exactly what you need to make. You can make it a month ahead of time, so that even when your business is keeping you hopping, you still have content coming out regularly.

While you’re creating a content calendar, also assemble a curated hashtag list. It will extend your reach to new viewers.

If you’d like a free content calendar template, head on over here to request one!

Don’t be Boring!

Not only should you be posting every day, but you need to be helpful, entertaining, or interesting to your target market. The general rule is 80% content and 20% selling. There are a lot of great apps to help you, Canva is a free graphic design tool.

Turning testimonials into templates is an easy way to make content, like this one we did for a client:

Tips are also a great way to create content:

Ask questions and engage with the people on social media. Think about the questions that people ask you over and over again and use that to create content. Watch your competition. on Facebook you can select their pages to watch and look for opportunities to collaborate with people in your industry and promoting other local business.

One of the great things about social media is that it is about relationship. It’s about interacting with others. Be a positive force, share other people’s content and they will share yours. Be helpful, fun, and useful, and people will respond. You know how much you don’t like the hard sell? No one else does either. Social media allows you to speak up and share your business and your skills without needing the hard sell.

If you’re feeling like quick and dirty is less like a molehill and more like a mountain, let us help you get your social marketing managed.