Social media is now an integral part of any (small) business’ marketing plan, and if it isn’t it should be! Aiming to curate the best content for her industry, Lucy Given, owner of LUC Design store in Hobart, Tasmania has close to 330K followers on Instagram and growing. Here she shares some of her social media tips.
1. Create a plan for each social media platform
• Why are you on social media? What social media platform features your target audience?
• Who is your tribe?
2. Post consistently
• Work out when the best time to post is (think about who your audience is and what they are doing at certain times of the day)
• Understand what would be the optimum ‘type’ of post to get the best engagement (is it a photo, quote or video?) Photos have shown to be the most popular type of social media content for engagement. They get the most shares on Facebook, the most retweets on Twitter and photo-heavy Instagram has the most engagement of any social media channel
• Post at least once a day
3. Be consistent across all platforms
• Does your brand/business have a consistent look (i.e. logo/colours/font)? Is the post immediately identifiable as from your business?
• Format content specifically for each platform. Photos (preferably good high-res photos!) for Instagram, longer posts for LinkedIn, videos and memes for Facebook and short and snappy announcements for Twitter
4. Be picky about what you share
• Think carefully about entering into political or topical arguments
• Think carefully about sharing family or personal information
• Is it relevant to your audience?
• Is it helpful information?
5. Watch your competitors―but don’t be distracted by them
• Who do they follow?
• Who’s following them?
• How often do they post?
• What time of the day are their posts?
• What are their most popular posts?
6. Be aware of the analytics of your platforms
• Reach and engagement for Facebook
• Impressions, visits and mentions on Twitter
• Views and actions on Google+
• Impressions, clicks and interactions on LinkedIn
• Impressions and engagement on Pinterest
• Likes, comments and mentions on Instagram
7. Give people a reason to follow you
• Create a value proposition for your business on social media
• What are you offering that others are not?
• Think like a publisher not a marketer
As a small business owner you can’t afford to avoid social media, so put these tips to good use and don’t be afraid to get social!
