Before starting at the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, I worked with several small businesses to develop their use of social media and the most common barrier to using it was a perceived lack of time, money and knowledge. This was interesting for me because social media is actually one of the most cost-effective tools out there to promote your company and put simply, no-one knows your business better than you so it’s time to start getting your messages out there.
You don’t need to be on every platform
The key to doing a good job on social media is to invest your time. To start with, pick just one social media platform and use it for a set amount of time each day – you can post photos, reply to customer queries or upload promotional offers. Consistent posting and daily monitoring will help you understand how your customers interact with you on social media. Once you have a good grasp of one platform, then start exploring other ones too. At Scottish Chambers of Commerce, we focused on Twitter and then added additional platforms over a 12 month period and this helped us to manage content and also monitor analytics from each platform.
Don’t be pressured
Do what’s best for your business and don’t be pressured into following what everyone else is doing. Social platforms are introducing new features all the time and it’s important to tap into these features with the customer in mind. For example, Instagram have introduced a feature which allows you to upload an album onto Instagram and this could be a great way for you to showcase a particular product with different features. Facebook has introduced its Live Video feature so you can broadcast at the tap of a button. These are all excellent features for businesses but the key is not to jump right in but instead to have a planned and well-thought out strategy of the purpose, objectives and goals of each feature. On Social, it’s always better to take your time and do it right.
Content, content, content
So, you’ve done your research and now you want to drive up the number of followers you have so you better start posting every day at least twice a day, right? Well, to begin with, no.
Start off with a low frequency of posts with a high priority on the actual content that you want to put out. If you want to post a photo on a platform, make sure you take the time and take the ideal photo and spend just as much time thinking about the message attached to that photo – use the right words and don’t forget to use a relevant hashtag!
Make use of your smartphone
You are wanting to create good high quality pictures and video content but that doesn’t mean you have to rush out and purchase an expensive DSLR camera, especially if marketing budgets are tight! Whilst these cameras are useful, your smartphone can be just as powerful for capturing high-impact photos, as long as you plan in advance and take your time to get the ideal shot.
As well as taking the ideal shot, there are some great apps that you can download straight to your phone to edit photos and videos before you decide to publish them online.
In the next edition, I’ll be writing about the power of analytics
