Social media has an undeniably large sway over the state of the world. Everyone is on it in some capacity, and its use as a business tool is something we are seeing increasingly large amounts of. Making mistakes with social media can be easy, given how fast it evolves and the variety of different uses it gets, but it’s also one of the worst places to make errors, since it can be punishing. So, let’s take a look at ten ways to optimize your business’ use of this highly valuable tool.
Make It A Part Of Your Standard Website
This is something you’ll see quite a bit of already. The optimizing nature of this move is that it increases the ease with which people traverse the ‘web’ of your company’s communication tools. Aside from that, it reinforces the image of your site as vitalized, current and engaging.
Links To Your Site
Just as in the first pointer, you want to be using social media as a gateway to your actual company website. Social media is a fun and less strictly business-like starting point in your company’s relationship with its clients. This should be taken advantage of by using it like an inviting portal to further engagement with your company. So include the link in an easy-to-reach place.
Nail Down Your Ideal Post Frequency
Post frequency can be an awkward area to travail. On the one hand, you want to be present in the feeds of your followers. On the other hand, you might feel like you’re running out of material. Don’t be afraid of re-posting things if you don’t have fresh material. The key thing is consistency. You want to monitor your post click-through rates and play off of that.
Use Keywords
This is an application of an old tool in a new sphere, but it works. Just like your website will have the right balance of keywords for effective SEO, your social media needs to contain the right keywords to keep your content relevant.
Socialize
It’s not called social media for nothing. A lot of the accusations about corporations is that they are soulless and see their customers as stats, not people. Social media can be a great place to eliminate those doubts by really engaging with ordinary people.
Keep It Professional
To slightly contradict the above point, it’s important you don’t get too familiar on social media. Audiences want to feel like there’s a real person behind your account, but still that that person is professional and treats them with the respect that a customer ought to receive.
Stay On Brand
Again, in spite of the flexibility of social media, it’s really important that you push your company’s branding. The share mechanic inherent to social media means it’s a great place for some free marketing. Have high quality digital banners with logos clearly presented.
Have Social Media Customer Services
The convenience and the power that it puts in the hands of your customer services means that ‘tweeting’ a complaint, suggestion or query is increasingly becoming the go to method for customer service. Make sure that you are prepared for that when it comes.
Create Content To Share
If your company social media is looking a little dry, then you might want to consider investing in some sort of content creation. A continuously updated blog, for example, on things relating to your field, can really help elevate your feed.
Influencers
Influencers, people with large numbers of followers, can be used to get yourself some seriously easy marketing done. Their natural habitat is social media, so seek ones out that have some sort of connection with your company and try and partner with them if you can.
Conclusion
Social media is a wonderful realm for companies and the limits on what can be achieved with it really are simply the limits of your imagination. Having a properly optimized feed will give you the best possible chance of pulling off something really special for your company.
Michael Dehoyos is a web developer at PhD Kingdom and Academic Brits. He assists companies in digitalizing their marketing strategy, as well as sharing his knowledge by contributing to numerous sites and publications, the academic service, Coursework Help, amongst them.
