Do you wish you had more success on social media?
When it comes to social media there are 4 things that I think are the most important to help you have successful and engaging content. These are the things that I consider when I’m working with a new client to manage their social media accounts, but that doesn't mean you can't do it yourself.
The thing is, we can all do it, and while outsourcing is definitely the best option for many businesses, for lots of us we just need to learn some new tools and tricks to help us with our content and manage our accounts like a professional.
1. Creating Content
The most important part of social media is the content you create.
You can spend all your time online or have a beautiful account with a lovely bio and profile picture, but if you aren’t creating and telling people what you do, how will they find you? You’re relying on them stumbling across your page, but social media is competitive and we have to be more proactive now to get the results we want.
Engagement is important, consistency is important, selling is very important.
But I love it when I can feel excited about what I’m going to post!
When was the last time you felt excited about your social media? That you’d written something you couldn’t wait to share because you knew it would be helpful for your audience? You can get back to that point and enjoy promoting your business again.
There are so many different types of content you can share but many people get stuck in a rut, sharing the same type of posts and not being confident enough to try something new.
In my new course Be Your Own Social Media Manager we’ll be looking at different themes, different types of content, different platforms and knowing what to post and when.
You’ll have at least an hour a week to focus completely on your business and marketing.
We don’t give ourselves space to be creative and come up with new ideas for our business which mean we often end up engaging with the same customers over and over and not growing out audience at all.
The content you create helps you to reach new people, connect more with your current audience and shout loudly about your amazing business so we can all find out about it.
When you’ve got the creating content nailed you can move onto number two…
2. Consistent Content
This is the problem I hear the most from businesses, they don’t feel like they are being consistent.
They will have a really strong week of posting every day, 3 times a day, and then have nothing at all for a month.
It means they lose momentum and struggle to get going again after their unexpected break.
But what does consistency mean for you?
If you posted 3 times a day and then couldn’t keep it going, that probably means it’s not the right schedule for you to follow.
There’s no point in us blasting our content everywhere for 3 days and then having nothing to say for the rest of the week.
For me it usually means posting every weekday on Instagram, sending my Social Sunday newsletter and podcast on a Sunday.
The places I am not consistent are LinkedIn and Facebook. They will be more ad hoc and I’m okay with that.
The thing I see the most is that people aren’t reusing their content enough, or they are sharing something which could easily be 2 or 3 pieces of content instead.
If you’ve written a massive newsletter, chop it in half and use one half next week instead.
If you’ve spent time on a blog, use that for your social media too.
It’s not that we haven’t got enough content to be consistent, it’s that we don’t look at those big chunky pieces of content and see their potential.
Where do you want to be consistent and what will have the most impact for your business?
Have a think about that today and while you’re thinking about it you might also want to take a look at number three…
3. Confident Content
If you felt 100% confident in what you were sharing all the time, what would you post?
If you knew you couldn’t fail at anything in your business, what would you do?
Once you’ve started creating content and you’ve got your consistency covered, the next hurdle to jump over is your confidence.
Confidence is one of those things that holds us back just when we’re on a good streak of posting and sharing, and it can come completely out of the blue.
We might get a sudden thought of - who are you to be sharing this? You don’t have enough experience or your advice is going to be rubbish.
The hard part is ignoring those voices or telling them to be quiet so you can carry on doing the amazing work you’re doing!
Start by making a list of all the things you would love to do if you were feeling brave and confident.
It could be starting a podcast
Or doing a live video
Or talking on your Instagram stories
Now try and make a small step each day to move towards that.
Some of the businesses I’ve worked with in the past haven’t felt confident enough to share more of themselves and the behind the scenes of their business.
But social media is often the most effective when we find out more about the person behind the business. It helps to build the know, like and trust.
It can end up being some of the easiest content we post, once we build our confidence up.
When you’re feeling good, brave and confident, you might start thinking - but how am I going to do this myself for the whole year?
And that’s where number four comes in.
4. Continuous Content
There’s not much point in having an amazing month if you can’t maintain that level across the other 11 months of the year.
What you need is a plan.
Put in a system that works for you to help you continue your work and not let it dip off when you’re busy or when things get tough.
There will always be times when we have lots of orders or bookings, or personal reasons stop us from wanting to show up online.
So when you’re feeling good, start putting in the plans to be there for when you aren’t.
Scheduling, batching, reusing, planning, strategising. Whatever works for you.
This is the theme in the final week in the Be Your Own Social Media Manager course and I think it’s important because you need to know that this is something you can keep up.
You can do this for a month, or you can hire a social media manager for a year.
Or the third option...
Learn how to do it yourself so you’re always armed with the tools to promote your business. You know what they say about teaching a man to fish!
These tools might be aimed at social media but you can apply them to most methods of marketing. Consistent blogging, confident podcasting, creating content on Pinterest, your website, your Youtube channel.
I’d love for you to learn how to Be Your Own Social Media Manager, stop the overwhelm and start sharing.
If you’d like to join us at the lower price before the end of the year just visit my website here or send me an email at hannah@hicommunications.co.uk to book your place.
