Social Media
How to restore engagement with social media
By Lenka Davis
Are your social media accounts not gaining viewers or likes? Almost every startup knows their social media game has to be strong. Below, we are going to focus on social media marketing which is part of your overall digital marketing activities.
Recently we worked with a couple of clients whose social media activity had died for one reason or another. They came to us because they wanted us to evaluate what they were doing and recommend improvements. We started with a social media review, also known as a Social Media Audit to understand what’s working, what’s not, and what can be improved upon.
There’s good news. Look at these four steps to turn your social media in the right direction.
Evaluate where your accounts are right now
Example data based on a bunch of real data
Evaluate the current state of your accounts - the level of activity and engagement, along with who is responding, will help you determine how to move forward. From the evaluation you will begin to grasp what is going on. You will then be in a position to decide what relevant content to continue to produce. It will also help you identify the best social media platform for your customer community.
If you think your early stage startup is missing a key social media account, now would be a good time to set up any missing accounts. If you are not sure what social media platforms you want to be on, then testing a few is a good idea. It is important to start using social media platforms you think will be most relevant to your customer community so it will grow with your business.
Establish one or two platforms first
Each platform has its own personality and community who prefer to be on it. To start, pick one or two social media platforms and get that community launched first. Getting one platform up and running gives you time to figure out what works best for your business, and then you can also take what you learned and apply it to your next platform.
If you are not sure which platform to start with or have not established any presence with any one in particular yet, then match the platform with your target market. To do that look at your current or potential customer’s attributes to make the best match. In general, attributes to look at are:
Age
Gender
Location
Income
Education
Frequency of usage
Type of community: Business/Consumer/Both
Gender, age, location, income and education demographics for popular platforms in the US are listed in detail here in SproutSocial’s blog article. For any startups focusing on customers outside of the US, international social networks are listed in InTechnic’s article.
As you get your social media plans organized you will want to establish an editorial calendar. The editorial calendar is the one main location that holds all your copy, images and release dates. You can also add counts of ‘likes’ and ‘views’, along with other relevant info for each social platform for each post, however, each platform has some basic insights or analytics provided in the admin area. It’s good practice to get this set up, use a simple spreadsheet, even if you don’t have many social media accounts.
Some of the big benefits of having an editorial calendar, other than visibility of the overall plan, is that you can proof all the parts of your post ahead of time to eliminate any last minute mistakes such as typos, erroneous facts or missing images. You can see the coherence of your brand if you have the creative all on one page.
After the post you will have one place to track what works and use that information to make improvements to what you post next. When planning, determine the frequency of your posts, and your marketing reach goals for each platform. You can use those goals when you need to make decisions for your next post or campaign.
Assess what are you saying
There is an art to engaging existing and potential customers on social media and much of it has to do with who you are communicating with, your community, and what you are writing about. If you share what you are interested in and ask questions, then people who are genuinely interested will engage in conversations with you. This will lead to more comments and engagement with your community, but it does take time. Know why they are there before you start your conversations. People are on social media for the following top reasons based on We are Social Media’s article:
to take a break or fill up time (39%)
check in on friends and family (42%) and
stay up-to-date with news and current events (41%)
List relevant hashtags in your posts, such as those that are in your profile bio and those that regularly appear in your other posts. Hashtags are very useful in LinkedIn, Instagram, and of course Twitter, to name a few platforms, but should be used differently in posting on Facebook. For Facebook, the recommendation is to use one hashtag, or at the most two, in your posts. Use branded hashtags (#yourcompanyname) or popular hashtags (#learning) and put it at the end of the Facebook post. For Instagram you can use many hashtags, up to 20 (but honestly who reads them all, be selective), LinkedIn can have 1-5 and for Twitter use 1-2 hashtags, We recommend to keep it simple. Less is more.
When writing your posts be cognizant of the length of the content. It should vary depending on which social media channel you are using. And end it with a call to action. A call to action will depend on what you want your reader to do and can vary between asking a fun question to asking them to click a button to learn more or to buy.
Show visual consistency
Do they recognize it came from you?
Consistency in your brand will get you recognition more quickly. Recognition and familiarity with your brand look and feel, your tone in messaging, all that helps people remember who you are.
Credit: Quiklee Game Instagram account, 2020
Be consistent with the templates you use for posting, and with images, fonts and colors. You can use one color or a few, but keep it simple. As an example, the above Instagram account does a nice job of keeping the color scheme consistent each week and repeats the same three templates for each type of post: question, quote or statistic. Also, include imagery or video with your posts whenever you can because it increases engagement.
Other ways that will help you stay consistent is in your profile accounts:
Have them use the same imagery and brand voice. This is especially helpful when you are starting out on a social platform so followers feel confident they have the right account
Use the same handle name, this allows new followers to find your accounts easily
Include your homepage link so users can check out more about your product(s) or services in more depth
So . . .
If your social media activity has dwindled start with these four simple steps. It’s also important to note that your business is unique and not all of these may apply. Please use the information as a guide to getting your social media marketing plan on track. And, we have created this free worksheet to help you get started.
Evaluate where your accounts are right now
Establish one or two platforms first
Assess what you are saying
Show visual consistency
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Fun Fact
Six Degrees, launched in May 1997, is widely considered to be the very first social networking site according to CBSNews and Wikipedia. For it’s registered users, it was of the general form that is in widespread use today and contained profiles, friends lists and school affiliations. It is named after the six degrees of separation concept that people are six or fewer connections from each other. It’s a small world when you think about it this way! These days we just think about staying six feet apart.
What was your first social networking site you joined? Do you remember why you joined it? Share in the comments below.
Lenka Davis is a Managing Partner at Fly to Soar. She has worked in marketing, managing projects and building tools in the high-tech industry for Fortune 100 companies and also ran her own business. Follow Lenka and the Fly to Soar Team on Twitter @flytosoar.
Photo Credit: Cristian Dina
