Social media has revolutionised the way people are able to market their small business. It allows users to communicate, create and share content with others. No longer do you need to rely on word of mouth, newspaper ads or flyers to get customers to check out your business – instead, utilise your Internet connection. However, running successful social media profiles for your business is about more than quick updates – you should be sharing the most attractive, professional, relevant content possible.
Posting consistent content is key to growing an active following on social media. When you’re busy, it can be difficult to keep up manually. Buffer enables you to upload posts and will automatically release or “post” them at appropriate intervals throughout the day.
Canva makes it easier than ever to design great content for your business. Forget trying to figure out Photoshop and other complicated design programs. With Canva, all you need to do is select a layout and customise to your hearts content using their drag-and-drop feature. You can create anything you need for your social media with ease using Canva.
Looking to see how many shares a particular blog post, article, website or image received? SharedCount will take the URL and show you how many shares a particular website/webpage has had across various social media sites (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest etc). SharedCount is a great way to check which types of posts gets the most attention from your customers and followers on the Internet. The more shares you have, the more often you should post on that topic. It is a simple way of analysing your posts to gage what content is helping your business grow online.
Sometimes it is easier for a customer to visually see information rather than hear an explanation from you. Info.gram enables users to create simple yet effective charts and graphics that can be shared on social media, your website or added to your monthly newsletter.
Running social media pages for your business actually involves a lot of thought and planning. You may often wonder, “what should I post?” or “how do I know what works?” With BuzzSumo, you can find out. You can search for a specific topic or competitor to see what type of content performs best – and the influencers driving successful social media campaigns.
The whole idea of social media is to be interactive with your customers – but how can you make everyone feel special when it’s so hard to keep track of where and when you’re brand is being talked about. Mention allows you to integrate Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest and other social networks. From the Mention dashboard, you will be able to monitor and analyse mentions of your business across any of these networks – and reply on the spot! You can even filter your mentions to only include the most important and relevant ones (e.g. from those with a large social media following themselves).
Calendar
Successful social media strategy requires organisation, and that’s why one of the best tools you can use is a calendar. Plan in advance (let’s say, a month) and write down what you will post on each day. This will give you the time to source images, plan captions and/or design graphics. Having a calendar full of content ideas will make it easier for you to utilise scheduling apps like Buffer. It will also save you time and stress because you will never run out of content options. Many businesses choose to write their social media content down on a physical calendar and hang it on a wall in the office, but you can also create your own in Microsoft Word or simply use the Calendar app on your computer.
There are so many tools available on the market with loads of options to suit your business. Many people also choose to simply utilise the “built-in” features that a social network already has, such as Twitter Analytics. This is a great option for anyone who is just starting to use social media and doesn’t want to be overwhelmed by anything too complicated. However, in the long run and as your business grows, it is definitely worth checking out alternatives such as the ones mentioned above. A smooth social media strategy will have a big impact on your brand, so anything that helps you along the way is worth the time you spend researching and testing it out!