For some businesses, marketing on social isn't always easy and even then, the term 'marketing' on social media is far too broad.
Businesses use social media for different purposes. It's an integral part of modern-day marketing, and without it, businesses would flop. All eyes, ears, fingers, and thumbs are finely tuned into social media, and it's become so much more than brand awareness. Now businesses can use their socials to build relationships between themselves and their customer, endorse their products via influencers, and make direct sales using social ads.
If you've been running your social media accounts for a while and you can still count the number of total engagements on the one hand, then it's definitely time to revisit a few social media fundamentals. Often, the most difficult parts are either beginning or getting over the hump.
Why is my social media stagnant?
Twiddling your thumbs as to why your socials aren't budging?
Perhaps it's because you are...
- Not presenting a brand that is very 'human'
- Being too pushy by hard selling your products or services
- Not reaching out to the correct audiences
- Posting too frequently, or not at all
- Using the wrong platforms for your audience
- Not creating captivating content
But there are criteria for social media fundamentals to click into place before creating your content.
1. Humanise your brand
It's hard to connect with non-human images. Posting photos of inanimate objects doesn't get half as much engagement as human content. And no, not those recycled stock photos from the dark ages - but decent quality, genuine-looking real people.
Share your brand story, too. Customers appreciate transparency. Tell your story, values, and ethos in a relatable way.
By humanising your social media, you're showing your audience that you're not a robot - but rather, you're a real human being behind the screen. Even better, convert your content types to short-form videos with actual people in them.
Choose branded colours and interesting photography. If you're personalising the brand with your own employees/faces of your business, make sure your content is friendly and relatable so that your audience is able to connect with your content properly. Humanise your brand, and you'll create a trusty recipe for clicks and engagement.
2. Don't be too pushy
Remember the booming BOGOF Safestyle advert from the early 2000s? The classic noughties form of 'irritating yet memorable' advertising has lost its knack after the revolution of social selling. And just as easy as it was to flip channels, it's just as easy to scroll past dud, pushy content.
Being too pushy with your sales tactics can be problematic for your brand reputation. It makes your company appear as though it's only interested in engaging for the purpose of selling. Of course, that's always your objective in the very end - but you'll want to let your brand know that you care about your customer relationships.
Sell suggestively without any pressure to buy, and don't make every single post about your products. A 'call to action' at the end of your posts is always a good, subtle way of marketing your brand.
3. Strike a healthy balance with posting times
Posting should be consistent, but not overly consistent. There's a fine line between building awareness of your brand, and being too pushy.
Posting too little isn't enough to make a regular appearance in your customer's feeds. However, posting too often saturates feeds with too much of your content - followers can become 'unfollowers' within a matter of posts. It's important to be consistent with your social posting, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to post every single hour.
According to Later's social media strategists:
- Nano accounts (0-10K followers) post an average of 3 feed posts per week
- Micro accounts (10K-100K followers) post an average of 3 feed posts per week
- Mid accounts (100K-500K followers) post an average of 5 feed posts per week
(Later, 2022).
So for SME's, three posts a week is a suitable posting timeframe regardless of the goals.
4. Choose the right platforms, and use them correctly
Choosing the right platforms for your buyer persona is imperative to getting good social media engagement. If you aren't choosing the right platforms, how are you going to access the right audiences?
Not only is it important to choose the right platforms, but it's important to prioritise them. For example, if one of your goals is to directly sell your products via targeted ads, Facebook is probably your platform of choice. But if you want to socially network with your stakeholders or investors, then LinkedIn is your go-to.
5. Create engaging, quality content
And now the obvious one: Only post quality content. Not blurry content that's whipped up in a couple of seconds, but content that really speaks to your buyer persona in a way that your competitor content doesn't.
Again, here's where your buyer persona comes in. If you're going to post something humorous - what kind of thing will your audience find funny? Is it on brand? If you're posting about your ethos - which aspects of your ethos will your buyer persona most likely relate to?
Time, patience, trial, and error...
Annoyingly, building a social media presence is a bit of a waiting game. It really does take time, patience, and strategy. Plus, sometimes it's trial and error; sometimes what you think will work won't gain any traction, and other times you'll be surprised at what ends up magnetising engagement.
If you're experiencing more 'error' than 'trial', perhaps a spring cleaning of your social media strategy is in order. Dusting out these cobwebs and taking your strategy in a whole new direction could just be the thing that gets you over the social media 'hump.'
