After they’ve made the jump into social media, many businesses start looking for ways to improve the experience, for themselves as managers, and for their followers as an audience. Best practices in social media and social media management can vary by platform, use, and preference, but here are some highlights to enhance your overall social media presence.
5 social media management best practices
#1 – Just DO it.
As we discussed in our first post, social media is a great way to interact with an audience, but it’s also not for the faint of heart. Planning, content development, and measurement are all key components, but so is vigilance.
Because it’s built to be engaging and – like the name says – social, it needs careful tending and daily attention. You wouldn’t ignore a customer’s phone calls or a potential client who walked into your office, and social media should be treated the same way.
#2 – Keep it fresh!
There is no single greater way to kill your social media credibility than to allow your content to turn stale. Large gaps in content send negative messages that undermine customers’ perception of your business’s health, culture, and trade readiness.
Customers think the worst: “they’re not posting because their business is doing poorly,” or “maybe the person who did that job got fired,” or even worse, “what ever happened to that business?” Keep your content consistent, timely, and fresh.
#3 – Plan for delays.
While you understand content is king, and that there are ways to plan for successful content development, hiccups and roadblocks can happen.
Avoid content lags by keeping a stable of great tools to help kick start your creativity and build your content quality. Check out our great content toolbox blog post here.
#4 – Benchmark your online presence.
Be prepared for an increase in online “chatter” about your business and understand how you can monitor it.
Take a baseline from your pre-social media days and then set up periodic monitoring searches (or “alerts) that correspond to your social media publishing volume and frequency. If you need some ideas for monitoring tools, check out our helpful review monitoring tool comparison blog post.
#5 – Explore new avenues for optimization.
We talked previously about the optimization features provided by most social media management tools. As you grow your following, think about optimizing your content for engagements, but don’t try to do everything at once.
Great ideas for optimization include scheduling content to coincide with high traffic times on your social media accounts, keyword and trending topic tracking, and expanding into more complex types of content – like videos, infographics and interactive forms.
This post is a part of a six article series on how small businesses can leverage social media for success.
- Social Media Best Practices
We hope you enjoyed this series and learned a thing or two about how to improve your social media marketing efforts!
If DIY isn’t your thing, we’ve love to get social with you!
If you’re ready to improve your social media management and implement some social media best practices, we’d love to talk with you! If you are looking for a social media agency call 817-642-9686 to speak with one of our knowledgeable social media consultants.
