Some people consider social media as something they do on weekends. Others use social media daily, but only for personal reasons. And there are others who use social media daily for both personal and business reasons. Which category do you fall into?
I fall into the last category—I love social media and use it for personal and business reasons. In fact, I found my last job on Twitter—I just happened to jump on Twitter during lunch and saw the tweet announcing an open position.
How do I use social media for business? I mainly use Twitter and Instagram—my favorite social media apps—to keep up with what is going on in the AV industry. I love how quickly new information becomes available on Twitter and can easily see what our industry is talking about by searching for the #AVTweeps hashtag. I am a big fan of pictures and video, and Instagram shows me the latest products and installations. I do use LinkedIn, but admittedly not as much as I should. LinkedIn was built for business use and it is a great resource for thought leadership.
What social media apps do I use for personal reasons? The list is long, but I mostly use Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. Facebook is my least favorite social media app, but everyone I know uses it and I can’t get away from it, especially when it comes to cycling since it's how I find out about upcoming rides. However, many businesses use Facebook professionally and have a lot of success.
So, how do you go about implementing a social media strategy? Here are five tips to get you started.
1. Set specific goals. Decide what you want to achieve, such as increasing followers by 10 percent each quarter, and create a plan to achieve that goal. Make your goals SMART—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.
2. Set KPIs. You want to be able to evaluate the success of your social media efforts and key performance indicators help you do that. Four social media KPIs you should consider are reach, engagement, return on investment, and retention and loyalty.
3. Look beyond vanity metrics. A vanity metric is a number or statistic that looks good on paper but doesn’t actually correlate to your business success. An example of this is your number of followers. Yes, it is great to have a lot of followers, but are they really your target audience? And they may follow you, but do they interact with your content?
4. Create your team. Take a moment to think about what roles you need to keep your social media strategy going. Think about what it will take to develop, post, engage with followers, and monitor your social presence, as well as who on your team should be responsible.
5. Remember your business goals. Your social efforts must tie in with your organization's goals, otherwise you risk wasting time.
By taking these steps, you can create a great social media strategy. Don’t wait to get started, create a plan and implement it, using the social media platforms that work best for your business. If you need more help, check out HubSpot’s free social media training.
To learn more about social media and how inbound marketing can impact your bottom line, check out Pivot’s Inbound Revenue Calculator.