Social media posting

What You Should Know Before Posting on Your Company's Social Media

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Social media is a powerful tool for businesses, but it can also bea source of stress and anxiety. It's important to know how to use social media effectively so you don't waste time managing your posts and avoid the pitfalls that come with posting on social media. 

Before you post on any social media channel, there are a few things that you should know. First of all, make sure to always post on the company's social media channels at least once per day. This will help increase brand awareness and generate more potential leads for your business. Secondly, if you want to take it one step further and start generating more traffic (and subsequently more revenue), then consider creating a social media posting calendar using Dashboard180 or any other social media tool to ensure that every posting is timely and relevant!

Social Media Posting Best Practices

Learn everything you can about your audience

If you know who your audience, you will be able to give them exactly what they want. So, start by identifying who you want to connect with. Is it millennials, single moms, or small business owners? Do your research and learn everything you can about them. You can find out their age, where they live, what they like to do in their spare time, and more.

Find out their challenges, what they want to see on social media, etc. This will help build a relationship with the people who are interested in buying from you so that when it comes time for them to make a decision on which company, they are going to do business with, there is no question of whether or not they made the right choice- because chances are you already have built up enough trust between both parties by this point.

1. Choose the right networks to use

You can determine the right tool to use by looking at the different social platform’s demographics. Also, it's very important to consider identifying on which social media platform your audience is active. If you have a large audience on Facebook, for example, then it would make sense to post there. However, if your company has a small following or the majority of its users are active on LinkedIn and Twitter only, then those should be used as well.

Having a presence on all of these different networks might seem daunting at first, but the more active and engaged your company is, the better chance it has of attracting new people and growing your audience. Researching a social platform's demographics should help you determine the networks to use. The types of things to look for include monthly active users, percentage of people in your country using the platform, age brackets of those active on the platform, and the kind of topics popular on this platform (Clarke, 2020).

It is also important to note which networks perform best for businesses like yours (If your audience is based in the US, then Facebook is likely your best option. If you're looking for a specific group of people, however (like travelers or vegetarians), consider using one of these social media platforms instead:

- Pinterest

- Instagram

- Twitter

2. Create a social media plan

Having a social media plan is very similar to having an editorial calendar. It's important that you have a posting schedule so everyone knows what they need to be doing with regards to social media content and when things should go live. This will help manage expectations from the beginning, which can resolve a lot of issues that might come up later on.

To create a social media posting schedule, you will need to start by creating categories for your different types of posts. These could include:

- Promotions

- Product/service updates

- General news about the company or industry trends that arerelevant to your audience

Once these have been identified and organized into their own categories, you can start to determine how often each category should be posted on social media. This is where things get tricky because it's not really black and white- every company has a different audience so the posting frequency will vary depending on what types of posts your business wants to share with its followers.

If you want to take the more casual route and just share content as it comes to you, then posting several times a week might be enough. If your company is looking for more engagement from its followers or wants people totake action after they've seen the post (like buying something), then you will want to try and get posts out there at least twice a day.

3. Conduct a competitor analysis

One of the most important things that you can do before posting on social media is to conduct a competitor analysis.

This will help you gain some insight into what your competitors are doing, which posts perform best for them and why, etc. By understanding how they're using social media as part of their marketing strategy, it will allow you to have a better idea of what your audience might be interested in as well.

This will give you an advantage over some companies who don't takethe time to understand their competitors at all and just go on social media without any sort of strategy or purpose, which can lead to less engagement fromfollowers and ultimately hurt business growth.

The competitor analysis should start by looking at your competitor's social media posts. This can be done by using a tool like Dashboard180, which allows you to see what types of content are the most popular or best posts for you and your competitors. All you have to do is add the username of one of your top competitors into the Dashboard180.

4. Establish your social media voice and tone

It's important to establish your social media voice and tone before you start posting, because this can help guide all of the messaging that goes out through your business' social media accounts.

Your post should be in line with what people would expect when they follow or engage with companies like yours on social media- if it doesn't fittheir expectations, it might not get the engagement you want. According to Hootsuite (2020), Every time you talk, write, design, post, respond, launch, thank, and connect with others you’re exercising your brand voice.

5. Create content your audience wants

Once again - if you know exactly who your target audience is thencreating helpful content should be easy since it's tailored directly towardsthem! If you don't know anything about your potential customers, it can be alittle trickier because you'll have to do some in-depth research.

This is why understanding your competitors' social media post willbenefit you so much since they already know what their audience wants and whattype of content performs best for them. If the companies that are competing against yours don't seem to understand what their social media audiences are looking for either, you'll have to perform some creative thinking on your own.

A great way of doing this is by asking yourself questions like: What type of content would be valuable to my audience? Are there any specific problems that people struggle with when it comes to the industry I'm in? If so,what are they? You can also look at what other companies in your industry have already created and see if you're able to use it as an inspiration for creating your own content.

The key is just to get started, because the more often you post on social media, the better understanding of who your audience is that you'll gain which will allow you to create better content. This will increase your chances of having social media posts that get engagement, which can help drive more business for your company!

6. Schedule Your Posts

While each social channel is different in terms of how often they allow content to be posted, you should still aim to post at least once per day. You could also utilize a social media scheduling tool like Dashboard180 to allow you to schedule your posts ahead of time, so that way you don't have to worry about posting on social channels every single day. This will ensure that you're not falling behind with scheduling posts, which can be very frustrating if it's something you have to keep doing every single day!

7. Engage with customers and listen for brand mentions

Just like with scheduling your posts, it's important to schedule time for engaging with customers and listening for brand mentions on social media. This is especially true if you're new to having a social media account -the more you engage with people who mention or talk about your business both online and offline, the faster they'll get used to seeing your social media account's presence. This will allow you to build a strong following that will be more likely to buy from your business in the future. Eckstein (2021) states that the different types of "engagement might include: Likes and Favorites Comments, DMs, Replies Shares and Retweets Saves Clicks Mentions."

In addition, if you want more traffic and leads, you should also consider using social media listening tools. These tools allow you to monitor conversations on social channels so that way you can engage with people who are talking about your business or industry.

As with all things, it can take some time and effort for yoursocial media efforts as well as other aspects of running a successful company such as creating high-quality content or having an effective sales funnel. However, if you're willing to put in the time and effort necessary, social media can be a great way of getting more customers as well as increasing your profits!

Sources

Clarke, T. (2020, November 3). 14 social media best practices you should follow in 2020. Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard. https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-best-practices/

Eckstein, M. (2021, April 11). Social media engagement: Why it matters and how to do it well. Buffer Library.https://buffer.com/library/social-media-engagement/

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