Are you feeling a little behind the times because your business hasn't figured out how to set up and use social media correctly? You're not alone. In fact, many businesses didn't see the value in social media until the Pandemic hit and it suddenly became their business' lifeline. Now, many are still struggling to figure it out and may not have the budget to hire professionals because, well- it's the Pandemic. While social media definitely requires a lot of work if you're going to see a great return from it, there are certain things that are essential to your success that are non-negotiable (like Facebook's Community Standards and Advertising Policies) and others that you can do yourself (like social posting, social profile optimization, setting up an ad account, and utilizing social media insights)!
First and foremost, it's important to understand your why behind setting up and using social media. For many, it could be as simple as "to generate leads" or "to raise awareness." These are valid reasons and are great motivators. When you find your why, it's easier to strategize and pick tactics to make it happen. Once you figure this out, it can help guide your future goals and benchmarks.
No matter the social platform you choose, the most important thing in your initial setup is to ensure you are setting up a business profile. A personal profile with a business name doesn't help you. A business profile will have all the capabilities you want and need. Once you have your social profiles set up, you're going to need to do what's called "profile optimization" (aka making sure you have all important information included to increase your chances of being found via social search and search engines).
To optimize your business profile, you need to make sure you have:
Every social media platform is different and requires slightly different image dimensions, may have varying capabilities, etc., but they all usually have certain similar capabilities that you want to take advantage of where possible. When it comes to posting on social media, you want to ask yourself the following questions before you post:
Are you posting when people are online? If you want to get more technical and see when your followers are online, platforms like Facebook and Instagram provide these insights. But typically, if your intent is to build followers, and increase awareness and engagement, you want to post when the majority of social media users are online. See more details on this below.
Does it abide by the community standards and policies? Social media community standards and policies provide an outline of what they do not allow. These are important to follow to prevent your account from being locked or blocked for misuse. The advertising policies, in particular, will provide you with everything you need to know when it comes to creating ads. Facebook and Instagram are the most strict of all social platforms, so we're linking directly to their guidelines and policies so you can become well acquainted with them.
Here's a shareable graphic to make these questions easier to remember:
We covered this information in our recent Social Media Snapshot, but we're reiterating the info here because it's important. Here are the most recent findings on the best times to post to social media, as well as ideal posting frequencies for each of the popular social media platforms for businesses.
When someone says social media strategy, you may cringe at first- but it doesn't need to be complicated. Most social media strategy is complex and carried out by well-trained and seasoned professionals, but there are some basics that you can do to jumpstart your efforts.
Ready to go deeper? Check out our social media marketing resource page for more helpful information!