Business blogging is a key tool in the repertoire of a modern commercial venture. It, along with social media and other public communications make up the core of your interactions with the public. Therefore, having strategies in place for proper implementation of your social media and blogging content are just as, if not more important than the rest of your public communications.
When managing social media, there are several strategies used by businesses to engage the public. First, identify your goals for your social media platform. Having specific and quantitative goals will help you to understand whether your strategies are effective and realistic. Look at what others have been able to accomplish, and study how they were able to do it. Learning from the strategies employed by others is the fastest way for an amateur to become proficient at using modern marketing tools.
Goals should be specific and measurable. For example, a good goal would be to have X number of shares on social media, or X number of page views. These are goals which can be objectively achieved, and your progress towards them is measurable. This makes it a lot easier to track your successes and understand your failures. These goals should replace insubstantial or vague goals, such as “increasing user engagement”. While that is something to aim for, it is not something that you can measure easily.
One common strategy used by many companies, is to hand off their social media accounts to agencies and services which specialize in managing social media and creating content for these sites. This can be a great tool in the arsenal of an established company, but if you are not in a situation where this is possible, it is useful to have a good idea of what you need to accomplish. Second, even if you will be hiring a professional to manage your accounts, you should have an understanding of what your goals are, and what you want. If you do not have this, you will likely struggle to find a service or professional who will do a good job with your social media.
When managing social media, it is important that you have a firm understanding of your companies image, and target demographic. Understanding the audience for your posts is a critical part of crafting a useful and popular social media account. Additionally, you will need strategies for recruiting customers and their networks into your audience. This is why many businesses will run promotions where discounts and other benefits can be received by customers if they engage with the company accounts on social media. This is an amazing marketing technique, and it succeeds for three reasons. First, you create a situation where an apathetic customer gains incentive to engage on social media. This additional engagement provides the opportunity for future business from this customer. Secondly, you create incentive for social media sharing. If you are running a promotion, interested parties will share your page and the promotion with their friends. This allows you to spread your advertisement without any work on your end. Better yet, these shares are likely to be targeted to parties likely to be receptive to your product. You have effectively recruited a vast network of advertisers who each have their own networks which they know well, and are sharing your advertisements among those they believe most likely to be receptive. Finally, this type of incentivised engagement serves as a promotion, which is likely to drum up additional business.
So, understanding your target audience can be used to craft promotions and encourage sharing among that group. Whether you are offering a deal on one of your services, or teaching a useful skill, understanding which things are likely to stir up interest will be key. But understanding your audience goes much further than simply providing content that will interest them. Your tone will also play a key role in how your social media accounts and postings are received. You want to be able to create an ethos to your posting, where your phrasing, word choice, and subject matter all endear you to your audience. This is much more difficult than it sounds, as many inexperienced content creators simply end up pandering (noticeably) to their audience, and this causes a lack of respect and a sense of discomfort. You don’t want to appear as if you are attempting to be something that you are not.
So, when looking to use social media to drive your success, it is important to know what you are doing. Start by making a plan, and outlining your specific goals for success. If you are hiring a social media expert to take care of this, communicate clearly to them what your goals are, and how you want to proceed. A reputable social media expert will be able to take your goals, and begin to implement steps to make them a reality. Once you have your goals, make actionable plans to get there, taking the time to understand each of the steps in your plan. Once you have these plans, there is nothing left for you to do but get started. In the modern age, any business which does not embrace the power and popularity of social media is unlikely to achieve much success.
