There is often a feeling of panic when you see your competitors posting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. You’re not posting there; in fact, you don’t even have an Instagram account. Surely you should be regularly posting away on all these platforms? Think of all that business you are losing! The answer? No.
Social media is a long game. There is a huge misconception that the effectiveness of social media content can be measured in instant sales. This is not the case. Social media is primarily about presence. If you think like your customer, this makes more sense.
Your customer hears about you. They are interested in your product, service or personality. There are two things your customer is likely to do. Firstly, they will look for your website. They will browse your site to find out more about you, your brand and your products. If all this looks like something they might be interested in, they are likely to look for you on the main social media platforms. They may not purchase or engage with you immediately but, by following you, they are ‘keeping you in mind’. The content you then post will encourage them to take action.
The other scenario is that someone sees one of your social posts and absolutely loves you. They love the message; they love the style and the want to see more of this. They follow you.
So, this all sounds fabulous. Let’s set ourselves up on all platforms immediately! WAIT! There are considerations. Firstly, think of the demographic of each social media platform – do the people that use the platform match the age/interests of the people you are trying to entice. It’s pointless investing your time and effort in post creation when the wrong people will be viewing it. And, talking of time and effort, this leads us nicely onto point number two…
Maintaining a high quality and effective presence on a social media platform takes commitment and time. There is nothing worse than an account that posts one thing every month. This is a waste of time. To maintain an effective presence, an account must post a wide range of compelling content at least 2-3 times a week on each platform. Content could include insights into everyday life, promotions, tutorials, announcements, quotes, humour, videos, testimonials, collaborations, awareness and many others. When appropriate, posts much be properly branded and include researched hashtags, links and mentions. This is all before you bring things like profile updates, highlight groups and stories into the equation. Once this is all laid out, it becomes clear why Puzzle Comms have so many clients that ask us to take this off their hands for them! So, in summary, our advice is to be realistic about the time you have to dedicate to your social media. Make sure you regularly schedule some time to dedicate to your platform(s). Once you know how much time to have to allocate, select the platform or platforms that best represents your brand and create amazing content. Make sure each piece of content has a purpose. And finally, don’t be disheartened if it doesn’t change your life straight away. Remember, you are building relationships and this is a long-term one.
