10 Top Tips for Managing Your Social Media Presence
Social Media is a growing industry and now competes with more traditional advertising media. The big-name corporates have dedicated teams to plan and manage their presence but small to medium companies aren’t utilising the full potential of what’s on offer. Here are 10 top tips for managing you social media presence:
- 1. Know what you’re about. If you can’t summarise your work in a few lines online then people will be bored of your organisation before they understand what you do. Know what image you want to create for your business and keep it consistent.
- 2. Set up a Facebook Page. The world and its mates are on Facebook nowadays and once your page is up and running people can follow what you’re doing with one simple click.
- 3. Post updates regularly. If someone finds your page and nothing has changed in the last 6 months, they’ll think you’ve not been doing anything. It doesn’t have to be ground breaking news – mundane things can create a down-to-earth appearance for you.
- 4. Ask for interaction. Promotions with prizes always grab the most attention, but simple questions can also work well.
- 5. Make it fun. For the majority of people using Facebook is a leisure time activity – people want to relax, talk to friends and have a bit of fun. Keep the page relevant to your business but try to ensure people can enjoy the time they spend looking at your page.
- 6. Schedule updates in advance. There are several services on the internet which allow you to schedule updates to the likes of Twitter and Facebook – we recommend www.hootsuite.com. It means you don’t have to be in the office when you want an update to go out and you can manage you time by setting up lots of updates all at once!
- 7. Paid ads really are worth it. If you know you target demographic then paid ads on Facebook are a really great way to get the message out beyond loyal followers. Campaigns can cost as little as £1 a day to get your organisation seen around 20,000 times.
- 8. Separate business from personal. Everybody has a right to a private life, but if you use an account in your name make it different for business. Try using a nickname or maiden name for personal accounts so friends can find you but clients don’t.
- 9. Think before replying. If someone criticises your business online it can be tempting to reply instantly. But if you take some time, draft your reply offline and sound it out with colleagues you’ll avoid posting something you regret.
- 10. Link things together. Facebook pages are a great tool for directing people towards your business so make sure you page contains links to your website, the address of your shop and/or a telephone number so they can get in touch.