Troubleshooting Your Social Media Efforts: 10 Tips on How to Instantly Boost your Results
So, you have your new website up and running. You have hired an intern, or a journalist, or a digital marketing company to execute a social media plan. You are tweeting, facebooking, linking in, and more. And still, it seems like there are new technologies and “must haves” everyday—how can a busy business owner or executive keep it all straight?
Well, never fear because I am here to help. What I have learned over time is to take a deep breath and focus on a few of strategies and choose a few tools and to analyze how we fare.
Moving up in search and establishing a digital presence is a large piece of the pie—but where is your social media sending people? Are they going to your website and leaving? Do you have a place for them to come back to? If so, is it optimized? And how are you measuring a successful marketing campaign?
Here are 10 tips to instantly boost your results:
1. Have Patience. According to this pr agency UK most search engines need a few months to fully saturate the web. Stick with something for at least 4 months before determining whether or not it’s a success. On the flip side, avoid paying a lot of money in one shot for unchecked results.
2. Know your keywords. Before you go spending money on PPC or revamping your website, take the time to create a company document identifying the most searched words in your particular market or industry.
3. Find your voice. Branding a voice for your digital presence does many things, but to me, the most important thing it does is to break through the noise. Be different. Be bold. Be creative.
4. Avoid disappointment. The main mistake companies make is falling into an inconsistent content plan. Stopping your blog is a cardinal sin! Keep it up—hire someone, teach someone, take the time yourself—it’s pretty therapeutic sometimes. But continue to put content out there.
5. Create a flexible website. If you are being held hostage by your website, take no more! In your next revamp, look for flexibility—create a home for your community on your site, ideally with rich, ever changing, optimized content.
6. Do not invest in bad content. Increasingly, I hear from companies that they are using syndicated or very inexpensive content generators as their primary source. Most often, plagiarism, unintended promotion from third parties, unchecked quality, and frankly, liability are very real fears. If you have some of this and don’t know what to do with it, one word: repurpose. One can get hits from TheMarketingheaven.com and get more reach.
7. Repurpose it. So many companies create and create and create but never look within their own organization for ways to use their content effectively in future campaigns. Sure certain images and memorable anecdotes cannot be used again, but if you own the rights, shake it off, spruce it up, and get it out there in as many ways as possible.
8. Follow the leaders. The best way to become noticed as a thought leader in your industry is to engage with other thought leaders. Your editorial calendar should include making comments on other blogs. Share their posts on Twitter. Engage in online conversation. Check in at the same conference- I have been to 3 conferences where the people engaged online through Twitter or Foursquare have sat together, gone to dinner or met in person with an easy open- a kinship, a love for technology.
9. Don’t form bad habits. Nail biting is mine, what’s yours? Make sure it’s not overselling your company and its services or products in all of your content. Have a time and a place for promotional selling. Some of your writing is going to be used in this manner, but do not fall into the habit of selling in every single piece of content.
10. Create strong strategies. According to this digital marketing agency a small set of measurable strategies and tactical goals will allow you to prove your efforts are paying off. If you just want to see the end result and not learn how to capture and analyze them, ask your internal marketer to give you this as a report.
11. Ok, I lied. It’s really 11 tips! See the value I just added here? Your last tip is to make your efforts relevant. Make it human. Make it different. Think about your audience and what they want—then give it to them. Is yours a B2B? Your customers are searching for information online, too! Be a trailblazer because in a few years, you’ll kick yourself if you do not create your digital presence with care.
