7 Productivity lifehack tips.
I have to admit, I am
starting to see it more and more.
Many people are FINALLY
realizing that they need to do a little planning
and actually have a strategy
if they are going to be successful using social media
to boost their businesses. It
is probably normal with anything that is new.
People were just so excited
to have Facebook and Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest, LinkedIn
and YouTube and all of the
others that they did not think they needed to allocate resources,
set goals or measure results
and adjust accordingly to be successful. They thought that a cute video of
their new puppy sneezing was all they needed to blast sales through the roof
<grin>.
If it were only that easy.
One of the things my company
does is create large-scaled, detailed social media marketing plans and
strategies for companies.
Many take a tremendous commitment of time and
resources to support.
That being said,
the basic principals are the same regardless of the size and type of business you own and I
want share 7 tips that I think will help you craft a social media strategy
that
absolutely rocks:
Tip #1 - It is better to be really good at one social media site than stink
on many:
You know already, it can take
A LOT of time and energy to support ONE social media site
much less three or four.
Getting your site set-up is the easy part. After that you have to create
and post great content, grow
your community, engage with your audience,
support other people's
communities, keep up with site changes, etc. Time and time again
I see small entrepreneurs
bite off way more than they can chew. They have a Facebook Fan Page, Twitter
account, YouTube channel, G+ account and are blogging, writing a newsletter
and managing their
website....WHEW...that's a lot, right?
Consistency and quality
matter more than being on ALL social media platforms. Pick one or two social
media channels and do them well first and then you can add in more as you go.
Tip #2 - If you only have time to manage one social media site,
you might consider focusing in on Facebook. It is the largest
social media site with 1.1 billion users and that is probably reason enough to
pick Facebook
if you only have time to manage one site.
I also know that Twitter and
Google+ are still growing quickly, but the fact remains
that more business is done
on, through or because of Facebook than any other site.
Your ideal client is most
likely there and you can easily reach them in cool,
fun and creative ways.
Tip #3 - Set "S.M.A.R.T" goals: Most people are goal
oriented and do better
when they are progressing
towards some defined goals. Yet with social media
people rarely take the time
to establish goals. I recommend starting with big, wide reaching goals first
and then breaking those bigger goals down into smaller pieces and establishing
performance benchmarks and
timelines for each piece.
Your goals should be Specific,
Measureable, Attainable, Relevant and T imely.
Here is an example. Most
people say "I want to use Facebook to grow my business".
How do you know if you are
succeeding?
Instead, what if you said "I
want to develop a Facebook strategy
to drive 100 potential customers to my store in the next 90
days"?
Automatically you will focus
on activities and a strategy to support that "SMART" goal.
Tip #4: Measure everything: This goes hand-in-hand with
establishing measurable goals.
Measuring does many things.
First, it helps you track overall progress to your larger goals,
but just as important it
tells you what is working and what is not. When you know
what is not working
you will naturally make adjustments to fix it, or you will try something else.
Let's take our same goal from
above, getting 100 potential customers in your store from Facebook promotions
in the next 90 days. To do that you will probably need to run a campaign on
Facebook. You could make an offer that only appears on Facebook, either a "promo
code" or coupon that only appears there.
After 30 days, you only have 12 people that redeemed the coupon.
What will you do? Well there
are lots of things. You can do some Facebook advertising
to get the offer in front of
more local Facebook users. You could mention the offer
in your newsletter or send a
note to your e-mail list with a link to the page.
You could kill the offer and
try something else.
The point is that measuring
results will drive adjustments that lead to better results.
Tip #5 - Have a content strategy: As a general rule, you should
only post promotional material about 10% -20% of the time. If you do more than
that people will consider you a "spammer"
or push marketer and
disconnect.
So, what are you going to post the other 80% - 90% of the time?
The
answer is things that are interesting, motivational, funny, useful or otherwise
have VALUE
to your community. How often
are you going to post? What times of the day and days of the week are you going
to post? A content strategy and plan
answers all of these questions.
Tip #6 - Be disciplined and Consistent: I have taught my "You
Can Do Social Media " community
that you can manage an
effective social media platform and presence in about an hour a day.
That sounds totally doable,
right? It is in the beginning but gets harder over time. Let's admit it, people
are busy. You have the job and the kids and the bills and a million other
things.
Consistency is a huge part of
building a winning social media presence.
Be disciplined and carve out 60
minutes a day of undisturbed, creative time
and the results of your investment
will be dramatic.
Tip #7 - Use the tools: While you are doing something on social
media,
just about anything really, ask yourself if there is a quicker way to do
it.
If it seems like there should be,
then odds are that someone has built a tool or found a way to do it.
Don't have the 30 minutes you need to schedule your content for
Facebook Wednesday
because you are on a plane?
Great, use the Facebook
scheduler at the bottom left corner of the status update box
and write and schedule
content on Tuesday to post Wednesday. Need help editing graphics?
Use picmonkey.com. It is free
and it is easy to use. There are tons of great blog posts
covering the best tools
available to help you manage most of the top social media sites.
Many are free and easy to
use.
If you are feeling lost or
overwhelmed by social media or you are just not getting the results
you want, stop, take a deep breath
and spend a little time planning. Follow the 7 tips
I have outlined above and you
will start to see a dramatic improvement in no time.
http://www.lifehack.org/productivity
You can TCR software
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I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times
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Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:
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many ways for you to work with the stresses of life
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com just for fun.
To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more
things you will know.
The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”
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