With the rise in consumers turning to social media for opinions about companies, it’s is important that businesses are paying attention to their social media presence. The first thought of the business owner is always “where am I going to find the time for yet another task?” With a little upfront planning and some careful time management, you can get a lot of mileage out of your social media time. Check out these tips on creating an effective social media presence for your business.

Choose Your Networks Wisely

It’s tempting to start a new profile on every single new social media site that pops up. While it is a good idea to reserve the names for pages you may think you want to use in the future, it’s important to carefully select the networks you will invest the most time and energy. Typically there are about 2-3 social networks that will work best for any given business. For example, if you sell physical products, you should consider sites such as Pinterest and Instagram, which are highly visual and well-suited for products. If you sell your services or time, Twitter is a great place to strike up conversations and promote your expertise. Check out our previous blog for more on choosing the most effective platform for your audience.

Plan Your Presence

It’s important that you have a plan in place when you set off to start your social media presence online. It can harm your business if you begin posting with gusto and then drop off. Failing to be consistent reflects poorly on your brand and can cause problems in the future, particularly if people are trying to reach you through social media. No one likes being ignored. By spending a few minutes each month, you can plan the things you will talk about, which sites you will post them to and how you will position yourself. Then when it comes time to post your content, you’ve already done the heavy lifting!

Schedule

Another great way to build a presence of your business is to schedule posts. Preparing what you post in advance will ensure that you are sending out social media content regularly even if you find yourself in the middle of one of those extraordinarily busy weeks. Those busy times happen to all of us, but planning ahead and scheduling posts ensures you have social media content going out even during those busiest of weeks. Sites like buffer allow you to load up relevant articles and content for posting at a later date. HootSuite is a free tool that is great for scheduling out content you’ve created yourself, such as blog posts and tweets.

Check In!

If people are visiting you on social media networks and leaving feedback, it is important that you acknowledge them. Did someone review your business? Great! Make sure to thank them for their time in doing so. If they left negative feedback, use it as a way to improve your products and services. Also, make sure that you acknowledge the negative feedback. Responding to even negative comments can be an opportunity to repair a relationship or show a future customer how professional you are even in the face of adversity.

Adjust As You Go

You may discover that your audience loves a certain type of content. Or, you may find that a new and emerging social media site gets the best results for you. It’s important to watch for these trends and to adjust accordingly. The scope of media changes frequently, so it’s important to keep up with the industry changes.

If you need help managing your social presence, OnPoint Internet Marketing has a variety of options designed to help you make the most of your online presence.

If you liked this post be sure to read business social media posting.

Social media hasn’t always been what it is today. Years ago, companies did not have pages to manage, people to interact with or a team dedicated to simply pumping out content for social platforms. Now, brand recognition and reach are highly linked to the use of social media sites. Fostering a successful social presence isn’t just about being present, it’s about utilizing the platform most effectively and fostering a community atmosphere. But first, it’s time to determine what platforms to invest this effort into. Check out a few of the most popular platforms below to learn when they are best suited for.

Facebook: As the largest social media platform in the world, Facebook offers access to over 1 billion people. As such, it’s a highly searched platform that offer companies the chance to get in front of a large audience. Unfortunately, in recent years, a “pay to play” model has been implemented, making organic reach for businesses incredibly difficult. The good news, this has made advertising options on Facebook increasingly robust and granular. Targeting at such a minute level can allow brands to find exactly the right people who are interested in what they have to offer.

Twitter: Twitter’s revolutionary 140-character limit has transformed how people disseminate information on this platform. Browsing this platform is easy for users who can simply scroll through the short form posts. In particular, this platform is effective for timely, up to the minute postings on “trending” topics. Advertising has now opened up to all U.S. accounts allowing businesses to promote both tweets and profiles to people outside the standard organic reach.

Google+: G+ is still in its infancy, especially compared to the immense user pools on Facebook and Twitter. This platform has special benefits to SEO when used by businesses in particular, but it’s small audience means it’s harder to gain a following organically. One thing to note, in the fields of tech and marketing, this platform tends to perform better as its first members were early adopters in the tech industry.

Pinterest: The visual aspects of Pinterest make it a perfect platform for e-commerce sites. Product shots, recipe/meal photos, and other creative inspiration are staples on the site. It’s also a great platform to target women users on as they make up the vast majority. On the other hand, the act of pinning is not the “typical” engagement, starting a conversation is not what this platform is made for.

Instagram: As with Pinterest, the visual aspects of Instagram are appealing, especially when selling products and services. Hashtags allow users to search easily and follow based on interests. Unfortunately, URLs are only live in the profile of a page, not on individual posts making it more involved to click out.

LinkedIn: Touted for it’s professional networking, the B2B abilities on LinkedIn are vast. Even better, advertising can be micro-targeted allowing businesses to focus on only those decision makers that can make the choice of whether or not to use their product or service.

YouTube: Facebook may have over 1 billion users total, but YouTube boasts 1 billion individual users each month and these users are watching 6 billion hours of video on the site. Those numbers alone should tell you the opportunities for social video sharing. Like Pinterest, YouTube provides the visual aids to enhance any user’s experience and allows users to share this with their favorite social platform too.

After reading these brief overviews of each platform, checkout social media contests to learn tips on running a contest promotion using social media. You’ll be ready to make an educated decision regarding what platforms will be most effective when joining Sacramento social media.

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