Managing the Social Media Madness

Social media has revolutionized the way we conduct our business on a daily basis. Every inch of the cyber network has in some way, shape, or form, influenced the way you think and whether or not you realize it is a whole different story. There is overwhelming evidence that shows the effectiveness and downfall of social media, but if you learn how to use it, social media is a great tool to utilize for your business. With just a few tips and knowledge behind all the different media platforms, the social media madness can be easily conquerable.

Social media is not only a tool to reach out to your audience and potential customers, but also a good way to engage with them as well. The only problem is that you only have 7 SECONDS OR LESS​ in most cases, to get there attention. It is a good thing we will go through different ways to achieve this feat with a post in such a limited time frame. However, there a few keys things you need to keep in mind before you start your social interactions throughout the web.

First things first, you need to think of your social media as the web version of your store. If people walk into your store and see paint chipping, out dated furniture, pictures crooked, and encounter rude employees, customers are not going to want anything to do with your business. Social media acts in the same way. IT IS A REFLECTION OF YOUR BUSINESS! So the little details matter when it comes to your social media outlets, as its shows the validity of your services/product.

BRANDING

One important aspect of social media is the branding of your business. Across all of our social media outlets, you will notice we have the same white “M” with a baby blue background. This is our logo and it allows for easy recognition for our audience, and that is where consistency plays a key role. Your logo is consider the face of your company and thus, should be a visual representation of your business and should not be compromised by a blurry picture from Google images. Here is an example of how even your colour scheme can affect the overall visibility of your logo.

CONTENT

Content curation is one of the hardest components of managing your social media platforms. The information you are posting is hugely impactful on your success or failure of your online presence. Our team tries to stay away from content that may be considered sensitive material such as political or religious views. Instead, we try to not only post material that is up to date and interesting, but also pushing out content that creates a form of engagement with our audience. Whether that means some kind of call out to go follow another page of ours, or a visual image that makes you think differently, or a literal piece engagement where our audience clicks on a poll to give their input.

FIND YOUR VOICE

The language you are using when posting on social media is in most cases, just as important as the content itself. Different social media platforms have different audiences and atmospheres, so it is essential you incorporate this into the language you use on each platform. For an example, as I will get into greater detail below, the content you push out on your Linkedin channel is not necessarily going to be the same content you push out on your Instagram. Finding your voice and adapting your language to correspond with the platform you are using is crucial for proper engagement with your audience.

BASIC BREAKDOWN

The language, atmosphere, and audience varies with each platform. It is important to highlight that out this list of different platforms, there is no sense in spreading yourself thin across all 10 platforms, causing your post consistent to decline. This is where picking platforms that are best suited for your business and understanding which audiences are across each platforms becomes hugely important and will be critical to your success. Here is a summary of the most common platforms:

Linkedin

• Targets a professional audience.
• Click through rates are higher than other social platforms.
• Postings should be business related - share business and productivity tips.
• Ex. job postings, blogs, and what may be going on in the business world.

Pinterest

• Platform that showcases products
• Great for imagery along with content to show how to solve a problem, inspire/appeal to others, and promote partners or products.
• Can be considered as a search engine - people come here to find inspiration and ideas

Twitter

• Language is more playful, yet still able to post about serious topics that are trending
• Consistency is hugely important, as 5 or 6 tweets a day is acceptable and expected
• Polls the most under used despite how effective they are, easy engagement by audience yet such powerful information for you as a business owner.  

Google+ 

• Referred to as a more practical facebook
• Have the ability to put your friends in groups called “circles” and can push out content to all or selected circles
• Considered as a social platform that allows you to connect with people with more ease
• Able to categorize your audience, making knowing your language and which content to push a lot easier

Facebook

• Your language has to ability to switch between more playful as well as serious.
• Great for fan engagement, video content, and due to the amount of people on facebook, able to reach out to a greater audience.
• Post consistently and share valuable content, engaging with followers in order to build an audience

Instagram

• Language is very playful and different from most social media platforms
• It is a platform that is heavily focused on imagery
• Great for showcase products or your business
• We tend to post about different holidays that are coming up, update people on some of our events we attend, as well as neat photos we come across

Reddit

• This platform is more effective as a search engine
• Great way to keep up in the trends, as most find their way here before branching out to other platforms
• Participate in open discussions around shared interests.
• Get answers from highly engaged niche communities

Tumblr 

• Usually referred to as the “underground market” of social media platforms
• Full of niche communities and subcultures that use their own dialects
• Language is very loose and unique and you may have to experiment before you find your voice
• Imagery and use of GIFs is highly effective

Snapchat

• Platform that is highly revolved around being in the moment and updating your audience what you are doing at that time.
• Its called a story for a reason! You want create a playful story 10 seconds at a time about your product or the event you are at.
• Great for creating excitement around your product, contests, behind the scene footage, and product update/demos

YouTube 

• Video sharing platform where users share a variety of user generated content which includes corporate and media video
• One of the harder platforms to conquer because not everyone has the ability to create high quality videos
• Thankfully users can share original content or anything they come across which makes content curation a lot easier.