Conquering Social Media Management

Social Media Management for all its benefits, is often misunderstood by small business owners.

These owners tend to reduce it to a measly game of numbers. When done right, it can actually help businesses build a stronger online presence, reach larger audiences, and also offers new opportunities for branding.

Social media marketing is so much more than focusing on and hunting for engagement, likes, shares and retweets. By putting the focus on sharing quality content, a business can achieve much greater things.

Why is Good Content Important for Social Media Management

Content plays a crucial role in achieving business and social media management goals such as brand recognition, audience engagement, and lead generation. Specifically, good content allows you to solidify your position as a go-to destination for your customers, whether it be for entertainment, education, or inspiration.

Effective content will help you to build long term relationships with your audience, ultimately leading to an increase in revenue for your organization.

The content you post on social media has the power to turn your brand into a household name and turn your followers into fans. This kind of impact only comes from having a solid social media content strategy. It’s not enough to show up on every platform and sporadically update your audience when you have the time. The way to stand out on social media is to identify specific goals, create valuable posts that align with those goals, and distribute content on the right platforms. Then you can measure your results, and fine-tune your strategy over time.

Unfortunately there isn’t one cookie-cutter social media strategy that will guarantee your success. Your strategy will differ depending on the industry and audience. However there’s specific steps you should follow to build out a plan that has longevity and helps your brand and business grow.

What is Content Marketing

Let’s define content marketing. There are many definitions online, but this one sums ‘what content marketing is’ pretty well: “It is a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services”.

Today, content marketing is the favorite method of most marketers. It is able to raise brand awareness, build entire communities around a business and, in the end, drive incremental sales.

But as you may have figured out, the battle for social media users’ attention is quite a fierce one. The harsh competition has been driving marketers to come up with new content and ways to utilize it to win the attention of social media users.

Content Marketing is not “Sell Sell Sell”

As a digital marketer we see this mistake all too often when it comes to businesses and their social media. We know it’s tempting… You have a few followers on social media and you just can’t wait to tell them about the amazing products and services you can offer them.

Unfortunately, this hard selling approach just doesn’t fly on social media and constantly pushing the sales message and self-promoting will just alienate your audience.

The end result? An unengaged following or no followers at all!

Your social media audience is there predominantly to socialize and see what friends and family are up to – and possibly watch the occasional video of a cat chasing a laser pointer. Showing up in their news feed with constant promotional posts will just tick them off and cause them to unfollow you.

Think about it, on these platforms, these people are not called “potential clients” they’re called “followers” and you should treat them as such.

These people are following you already because they have an interest in you as a company and the information you have. They already know what you can offer as a service or product. What they want, is to engage in your brand and the knowledge you have.

How should Content marketing work with Social Media Management?

Your social media content strategy requires a specific approach to acquire and retain an online audience.

Try implementing these 4 tips to turn down the hard sell in social media content:

1. Offer Value

First off, be generous! Write or create a video about what you know and share it with your audience. Ensure it’s relevant to your industry or audience though.

Businesses who are successful on social media offer value to their audience, rather than bombarding them with reasons why they should do business with them.

By posting helpful content, readers can learn more about your area of expertise and see that you’re committed to your followers as well as providing them with entertainment.

If you aren’t sure where to start with this, write down the top 5 questions you are asked by your clients.

2. Show, don’t tell

Secondly, instead of telling your customers how great you are, show them. This ties in nicely with the above point on providing value, but it is also a great way to get your happy customers involved. Ask clients for video testimonials or a photo and share these stories on your social media platforms.

Furthermore, another way to ‘show’ and not ‘tell’ is to showcase what you do behind the scenes and give examples of performance. Facebook Live and Instagram Stories can be a great way to do this.

Depending on your customers’ pain points to doing business with you, consider how you can overcome these by demonstrating your worth.

3. Involve your audience

Thirdly, get your audience involved in your social platform.  Obviously your followers won’t enjoy being talked at, but rather asked questions and responded to. This interaction is the key to success within Facebook and Instagram’s algorithm.

It gives you brownie points within the algorithm and will give your content more reach and airtime in the news feed. “Sell Sell Sell” social media management makes the mistake of creating distance between the message and the audience.

Moreover, when creating content which is of value, you can use content from to your potential audience. Sharing a relevant photo from an audience member that is relevant and on brand, will make them feel recognized, and help you develop trust.

4. Learn the right content ratio

We found that when it comes to structuring your social media content for the month the 80:20 rule is a good application. 80% value, 20% sales. It’s ok to include some selling messages and ask for the sale. After all, that’s why you are creating social content in the first place.

 The way you approach this should be subtle and conversational. You may not be asking them to buy right now but by adding a call to action, you can simply ask them to commit to your business in some way.

This might be signing up for a newsletter, visiting your website, or telling them to give you a call or stop by your office/shop for more information.

The Take Away

A social media strategy should be an essential part of every content marketing program. Social offers the exciting opportunity to increase brand awareness, strengthen brand credibility, and drive leads and revenue by influencing customers at all stages of the funnel. Like most things, a successful strategy takes a few tries to perfect. In conclusion, don’t hesitate to regularly test new tactics and adjust your method accordingly. And remember, it’s not “Sell Sell Sell”

How do you manage your social media content? Let us know your favorite tips in the comments!