5 Tips to Utilize Social Media for Your Business
When it comes to social media, Peg Fitzpatrick is the first person I think of as a mentor and influencer. I first “met” her when I attended the online Social Media Summit last summer, and have been a follower ever since. Seriously, her social accounts are #goals. With over 106k followers across her social platforms, stylish Instagram posts, and upbeat personality, it was easy to admire and follow her work as social media law. And, it was only natural that I read her book too.
The Art of Social Media: Powerful Tips for Power Users is written by Guy Kawasaki (former chief evangelist for Apple) and Peg Fitzpatrick and provides readers with a boatload of social media how-tos: from basics like how to set up your profile to how to avoid “looking clueless” on social media. I had a lot of takeaways from the book to apply to our social channels.
1. Feed the Content Monster by using Content Curation
The best way to grow your audience is to creating shareable and engaging content. The issue is always finding the time to create it yourself! While it’s possible to create our own content, sometimes you just don’t have the time. That’s where Content Curation comes in. Content Curation is finding other people’s good stuff (articles, videos, graphics related to your business or target audience) summarizing it, and sharing it to your followers. It’s a win-win for both social media managers (by keeping your social feeds flowing) and the original writer/website gets free traffic.
2. Take Advantage of User-generated Content
Nothing’s better than free publicity! Always share photos that other people have taken of your products and services. This provides proof to your followers that someone likes your products enough to share it with their own friends and family, and the user will get more views (and probably some warm and fuzzy feelings too).
3. Always be Visual with your Posts
How boring is a plain text post? Most users will scroll right past it, and it’ll be buried in their newsfeed forever. Always use some kind of visual, like a graphic, embedded video, or a photograph in your posts. If you’re sharing a blog post, always include a link to the post as well as your visual, so followers can read your content.
Pro Tip: If you’re on instagram, you’ll notice that they do not currently support links in posts. a popular trend is to add the link to the website field your bio, and use the hashtag #linkinbio to direct your users where to click.
4. Don’t Have an intern manage your social account
Sure, young people probably know how to manage some social streams better than you can. Some interns might do a good job, but as a business owner, you should be taking social media seriously. Invest in it yourself! This is your business and your brand voice. Be sure that someone qualified is handling it.
5. Use the Right Tools
Going to each separate social media account like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to post your content is ahuge waste of time. Instead, find a social media managing program to help make posting and monitoring your channels easy and quick.
In her book, Peg recommends Buffer (a shameless shoutout to co-writer Guy Kawasaki’s partner company, but still an excellent program) but there are plenty of programs out there to fit your social media niche and business goals. At Graydient, we use Hootsuite as our management tool. Not only does it do the job of posting, scheduling, and monitoring well, Hootsuite offers free webinars, certificate programs, and built-in tools like Hootsuite Suggestions to make searching for business articles easy. Do some research and find which program works best for your business.
Got a tip you want to share? Let us know in the comments or tweet us your social media advice!
