Social media is everywhere but the trouble is that it takes a lot of effort to utilise it correctly. Many businesses jump in and just start using it because they think they need to and well, everyone else is doing it. Then the initial enthusiasm fades and the social media account that they created with such gusto becomes dead in the water.
If you decide to use social media, what do you use? The list of social media websites is long and contains far more than you thought existed. Unless you have a real strategy for how you are going to use social media you will probably be wasting your time at best or damaging your reputation at worse.
The websites that I create have a way for the owner to write articles, whether that's called news, journal entries or a blog. Whilst I will provide the Content Management System, the client will need to write the engaging content and have a content management strategy in place.
A familiar tale
My experience of businesses who have tried social media goes something like this; they jump on the bandwagon of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or maybe even a blog and create a few opening entries. Then, business as usual (BAU) catches up and the social media entries slow down and end up not being updated for long periods.
The end.
To use social media effectively, you need to know exactly what you want to achieve. You also need to know what kind of content resonates with your target audience.
Content balance
You want to convey information about your business but no one is going to read about this unless you have some way of hooking people in. No one actually wants to know about your business. But they will learn about your business if you give them something engaging to read about; something that meets their needs. It's a transaction and the currency is quality, engaging content for your visitors who will pay you with their attention.
30% of what you write about should be news or information about your business. The rest should relate to the wider industry and be informative, entertaining and interesting, written to appeal to the target audience who you wish to engage with.
Conclusion
Decide what your objective is, choose your strategy and then select the right social media tool.
Once you've done that, you will now have to commit to regular updates in order to keep engaged with your audience. Finding the time to do this can be difficult and if you don't think you can do it, don't do it..