As an entrepreneur you may at times see social media as yet another thing you must do, a heavy burden to bear, or even worse, a downright waste of time. In this week’s roundup you’ll discover how to leverage social media so that it will enhance, rather than detract from your overall business strategy.
Post at the Right Frequency
The opening paragraph in this article by Neil Patel sums up why this is an important issue to consider:
There are few skills that will make or break your social media success more than posting frequency. If you post too infrequently, your audience will forget that you exist and you will quickly fade into the deep dark recesses of their minds. However, if you are posting too often, you will become a complete nuisance and they will dread seeing your posts overcrowding their feed.
What I love about this article is that it looks at the following primary factors that will help you determine how often you should post:
- The specific social platform (since posting frequency varies based on platform)
- The size of your following
- Your specific goals for being on the platform
You can read the article here.
Connect with Social Media Influencers
In my opinion, one of the best reasons to be on social media is to connect with influencers in your industry. Never before has it been this easy to have access to people who were previously difficult to connect with. However, since it's "easy," that means a lot of people are doing it, and unless you handle your connection with influencers in a strategic way, you'll be lost in the crowd.
This article published on Entreprenuer gives some great tips on how to connect with and nurture relationships with the influencers in your industry.
Post the Right Types of Updates
Now that you know how frequently you should post on social media and have some idea of how to connect with influencers, you may be wondering what exactly to post. This is in a sense a form of "writer's block" for entrepreneurs. There's nothing worse than sitting on Facebook (or wherever) wondering what to post.
This article by Sujan Patel published on Entrepreneur suggests the following eight types of social media updates:
- Link to your own content.
- Curate others' awesome content.
- Post lead-generating offers.
- Use storytelling and humor.
- Share something visual.
- Post questions.
- Reveal something personal.
- Recognize the accomplishments of others.
What I love about these different types of posts is that they include a good mix of promoting your own business and promoting others. I recommend that you test out these different types of posts and track which ones resonate with your audience the most.
Start a Private Facebook Group
Facebook groups are one of the most popular options for building a thriving community. In addition to the community aspect, another great thing about Facebook groups is that they have a much greater reach than Facebook Pages. Many entrepreneurs have walked away from or reduced their commitment to Facebook Pages since often what is posted often isn't seen by the people who have liked the page.
This article provides some good insight into the why and how of using Facebook groups, but it failed to emphasize one very important thing -- never add friends to your group without their permission. Let me repeat that: never add friends to your Facebook group without permission. I've had that done to me many times and all of a sudden, my email inbox starts filling up with updates about what has been posted. It's kind of like signing people up to receive junk mail without their permission. Instead of just adding people to the group without permission, reach out to people and extend an invitation to join your private Facebook group. If they're interested, they'll join, and if they're not interested and don't join your group, at least they'll still be your friend. 😉
 Use Social Media for SEO
Some entrepreneurs make the mistake of focusing on social media to such a degree that they fail to build their own platform. By own platform, I mean your own website. Your own website can include a mix of content such as blog posts, videos, podcasts and so on. It's important to build your own site because while you don't own sites such as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, you do own, and have complete control over your own site.
The problem with your own site is that it can at times go undiscovered, unless you focus on search engine optimization, also referred to as SEO. Most entrepreneurs, including bloggers such as myself, focus on SEO from within the website. For example, I'll optimize this article for the keyword phrase, "leverage social media," so that people searching for that on Google will be likely to find it.
But did you know that you can also use social media to improve the SEO of your articles? You can, and this article published on Small Business Trends shows you how.
Strategically Use Facebook Ads
When social media platforms such as Facebook first came out, one of the things that entrepreneurs loved about them was that they were a great way to promote business, for free.
But then Facebook (and other platforms) started making changes that made it more of a "pay to play" platform. This doesn't mean that you can't build a thriving fan base on Facebook without paying. Spending money on Facebook ads simply provides a way to accelerate things. For example, you can use Facebook ads to help grow your email list faster or to promote paid programs. The key to getting the most bang for your buck is to use Facebook ads strategically.
This article on Small Business Insider provides the following ideas for how to strategically use Facebook ads:
- You Can Use Facebook Ads for Different Purposes
- You Can Dynamically Modify Calls to Action in Your Ads Based on Location
- You Can Automatically Target Ads Based on Store Visits and Purchases
- You Can Create Slideshow Ad Videos Using Images, Clips and Sound
- You Can Target Your Ads Based on Your Customer’s Social Signals
- You Can Sell Your App by Deep Linking From Your Facebook Ad
- You Can Use Shutterstock Stock Photos to Make Your Ads Look Great
- You Can Create a Facebook Ad Outside of Facebook
- You Can Get Started with Facebook Ads for Only $50
- You May Soon Be Able to Advertise on Facebook Messenger
Be sure to read the actual article here for details on the above tips.
