The first thing many of us do as we see in the New Year is to make resolutions. January can often feel like the fresh start we need to stand back and think about areas where we’d like to make changes. Your marketing is no different, and the start of a New Year is a great opportunity to review your social media activity and make plans for the year ahead.
Like all resolutions, the goals you set should be achievable and things that you are likely to stick to. Setting targets gives you something to work towards and can be a helpful way of keeping you on track, but the target should ultimately be to make your life easier, rather than a chore that you will give up on.
Social media is playing an increasingly important role for small and large businesses alike, with social networks predicted to take a quarter of digital advertising spend in 2018. It is worth ensuring that you have a plan in place and that your social media is set up for success.
We’ve put together 3 steps to help you assess your approach to social media and to set yourself resolutions to make it work harder for you in 2019:
Learn from your data
Start by looking at how your social media is performing for you and use this data to inform where you focus your time moving forwards.
- Which channels perform best for you? (Likes, Follows, Engagement)
- What times are best for you to post? When do people engage with your posts more?
- What type of content performs best? Text, images, video, behind the scenes, face to camera, business news, product information.
- What should you do more of? What should you do less of? Are there any channels that aren’t working/aren’t worth your time? If yes, then focus your time on the ones that are.
Mix up your content
Do you find thinking of things to post on social media a chore? Chances are that if you’re bored with it, your audience will be too!
- Is your content working well for you or is it time to mix it up?
- Look at your calendar for inspiration – what dates or events are coming up that are relevant to your business? Which seasons are important and what can you get ahead of? Is there anything that you will be celebrating this year?
- Will you be running any promotions or discounts through the year? Is there an opportunity to run a promotion solely for social media audience? E.g. a special discount code to say thank you when you reach a milestone number of followers?
- Do you tend to stick to the same type of content? Does this work for you or should you be trying new topics or new ways to grab people’s attention? Do your audience like seeing behind the scenes/behind the camera or are they with you solely for information or product news? Trying something new and creating a little disruption in your feed can be good for your own creativity and also get you noticed.
- Can you create a regular feature like a weekly event/post? E.g. #tuesdaytips
- If you are finding sourcing content challenging, are there other people in your business that you can bring in to help? Have a brainstorm, ask for input from others, or even share the job with other people for a fresh perspective.
Plan ahead
Put some time into planning upfront in order to save time down the road.
- Try using a 1 month content plan to be more organised. By planning some posts in advance you ensure that you always have interesting content ready to go rather than scrambling at the last minute. If you can schedule content in a social media management platform then this will relieve the pressure of posting on the day (there are many free scheduling tools available). Of course, timely content is also important when it arises and will ensure your social media feed stays current.
- This will allow you to view your month ahead as a whole, identify gaps in your plan and where you might be repeating topics.
We hope you found this useful. If you would like to talk to us about your social media strategy then we would love to hear from you.