Tired Of Tweeting To Crickets?

Where did the time go?

When engaging in social media, it’s so easy to get sidetracked. With all good intentions, you sign in to a platform with a specific game plan and 30 minutes later you’re deep into posts that (while they may be informative and interesting) have little relevance to your original goal. Strong discipline is needed to strike the balance between being open to opportunities yet not diverting from your game plan.

Generally, social sites have a news feed of some sort, where inbound content appears (posts from others), in addition to a status update (or outbound) field, where you post your own content. By using both of these assets strategically, you can improve your social marketing effectiveness. Keep these items in mind to improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of your social marketing efforts.

It’s not all about you

Always remember, social media is social. Like an actual conversation, it’s about give and take. Much of your effort should be engaging with others — re-tweeting, re-pinning, sharing others’ posts or commenting on their status updates or blog articles — as opposed to just sharing your own content. Start by perusing your news feed for status updates from your network, and socialize.

In business, all connections are not equal

The next step is to get more strategic. Which of your connections consistently post updates that are particularly valuable? Who would you like to deepen the connection with? Reach out and engage with these individuals to stay top of mind. Develop a list of key profiles to use as a reference when reviewing updates in your social media of choice, or add them to a specific list of favorites. This intentional socialization is key to making effective use of these powerful marketing channels.

Stop tweeting to crickets

Do you wonder if anyone is even paying attention to your social media activity? To make the most of your marketing time investment, it’s essential to review your analytics. Each social platform offers valuable data which provides insights into which content is resonating with your audience. Capitalizing on this marketing intelligence will help you to better engage your audience.

Review your top tweets in Twitter analytics to learn the types of content that truly engage your audience. While the impressions numbers are larger, engagement is a more important metric. Create a disciplined process to review this data regularly and keep track of the topics, style and timing of the posts that wake up the crickets.

It’s not flirting — it’s business

Pay attention when people reach out to you via social media. That outreach can take a variety of forms, specific to each social platform. When others engage with you, they are expressing an interest in what you have to say. Don’t leave those warm leads hanging!

Create a discipline around reviewing and acting on your social media notifications.

A glance in the mirror never hurts

A business is a living thing which continually evolves over time. Your focus shifts, you offer new services, specialties or sales channels. As a result, you modify your customer-facing business assets — from your website content to purchase confirmations, brochures to business cards. Don’t forget about your social media bios. It’s a good practice to perform an annual social media inventory to ensure your bios on all platforms accurately and consistently reflect your company’s key priorities and offerings.

With a focused, intentional approach to your social media marketing, you can improve your engagement and effectiveness. “Focused” and “intentional” don’t describe your approach to marketing? We can help.

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