Managing a social media channel sometimes feels like running on a treadmill. Find, write, post, comment, like, repeat.
To keep things fresh The Marketing Architect model for social success (learned from the awesome Digital Mums training group), relies on taking a campaign approach to social media. In other words, every couple of months, create a new theme for the page that will showcase a particular aspect of our product or service, focus all articles, content and imagery on this theme. That way your content doesn’t get boring and you always have something interesting to engage prospects.
Digital Mums does this brilliantly on its pages, check it out.The company has run campaigns such as #workthatworks and #digitalretox this year, both engaging and informative.
But, there are lots of other things you can do to give your page an instant boost, if it’s looking a bit lacklustre. Remember that the whole point of keeping your pages fresh and interesting is to develop your community and deliver traffic to your website to increase revenue and/or repeat purchases from your audience.
- Update your bio. Is it really selling you and your services? All bios need a polish once every few months. Check yours and make sure it’s truly promoting the benefits that your clients are looking for, and that it’s linking properly to your website.
- Freshen up your cover imagery and make sure that you are using the correct sizes for header and profile pics. We use Sprout Social to stay on top of the correct sizing. Is there anything new or upcoming in your business that you could promote in your header for the next couple of months? Why not change the graphic to really shout this out.
- Gone live yet? If not, now is the time. Video, especially live video gets promoted on the Facebook channel more than any other type of content. If you go live at a fixed time every week and what you have to say is interesting enough, you’ll soon develop a following of people who seek you out at that time. Great way to build a tribe.
- Develop some graphics. We use Canva to create a selection of templates for our clients, in their corporate colours and fonts. These can be used for ‘series’ posts, which are released on a regular basis – once a week, or every couple of days. Content that tends to work well in a series is that which can be repeated, so: a weekly tip of the week, or testimonials.
- Ask a question. Don’t feel as though you constantly need to be ‘putting out’ information. Why not stimulate conversation on your social platforms by asking a question of your audience? This works particularly well on LinkedIn. Try to ask something fairly contentious (though not too leftfield, you don’t want to encourage trolls). Aim for something that gets people talking in your industry, or the market you are selling into. Advice questions work really well, (n.b. you don’t really have to actually need this advice!) such as: ‘What would be your best recommendation for someone starting a business?’, or ‘How do you ask for referrals?’. People love sharing their ideas and you can get some good conversations going, all of which will be seen by others in your followers’ networks.
- Choose a house style. If you are using Instagram or lots of images on Facebook, it’s a good idea to commit to a photographic style and stick to it. Give all your images the same filter treatment, so that they look as though they come from a ‘collection’ of images, to reinforce the brand identity of your business. You can even arrange them in your feed so that they appear in a pleasing pattern when you look at the photo grid. Check out the Talented Ladies Club (scroll down a bit) to see how this is done.
- Add an element of curiosity. If you are in promotion mode, don’t reveal all the details about your launch in each post. Leave your audience wanting a piece of key information, so that they can’t help but make a comment to ask a question. It may seem helpful to give all the details about your next workshop, but you could be doing yourself a disservice if your prospect doesn’t need to ask you anything about it.For example, if you are running a training course in a beautiful venue, write or talk about the content of the course and prime your audience by saying something like: ‘I’m so excited, it’s in SUCH a stunning venue’. When you then ‘forget’ to say where it is, you are guaranteed questions from your audience about the location, which will stimulate engagement in the post. If you’ve told your audience everything they need to know, they’ll have no questions, and you’ll get fewer comments.
- Create your own memes. No doubt you’ve seen all the World Cup memes (we particularly love the waist coat ones that M&S have been putting out, such as this one. Did you know you can make your own? Here’s the How To, from Hubspot.
- Be consistent. See last week’s post about consistency to find out why this is so important. Develop a weekly schedule for your page (we use Trello for this), so you know what you are posting on which day of the week, then crank it up and keep it going. You might need to keep a folder of interesting curated material to share so that you’ve always got something up your sleeve, ready to go.
No doubt that’s given you some food for thought. If you need help with any of this, please get in touch!
Let us research and create a social media strategy tailored for your business and targeted at your ideal customer. We help our clients to develop their own way of winning at social media, so that they can increase the volume of traffic on their website, and increase revenue.
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