There’s great joy in providing a popular dish on Thanksgiving. Nothing feels better than when people are complimenting what you prepared and hearing that what you made stands out among all the classic dishes. Just like your holiday platter, you want your business to stand out from others in the social media world—so we’ve gathered
There’s great joy in providing a popular dish on Thanksgiving. Nothing feels better than when people are complimenting what you prepared and hearing that what you made stands out among all the classic dishes. Just like your holiday platter, you want your business to stand out from others in the social media world—so we’ve gathered three key spices (tips) to help you cook up success in your social media platforms this holiday season.
1. Play to your Strengths
Just like cooking your own dish for a Thanksgiving dinner, all platters are not made for everybody. This is the case when it comes to social media use in the B2B sector as well. It’s fine to want a presence in multiple channels of social media, but it’s important to streamline your company’s goals and total efforts with the platforms that will be most effective.
Remember to ask these three questions as a part of your social media strategy:
- Where does your audience spend their time?
- What is your audience looking for in these different platforms?
- Which channels will allow your brand to connect with these audiences to get conversions?
This process is all about finding the best outlet to build relationships in your industry. Once these bonds become stronger with frequency, then the potential for leads grows from the return on relationship investment. Take the extra time and avoid just going through the motions. Too many companies invest blindly into social media and waste time when they don’t figure out where to properly apply their strong suits, causing a loss of potential leads.
2.Pop the Question
With social media, you can’t just “set it and forget it.” One of the biggest mistakes businesses are making with social media is that they are easy to predict and aren’t getting engaged with audiences. They will share a blog post or an uninspiring update like its clockwork. Unfortunately this doesn’t take your business far, as you won’t be forging much of a relationship with a social community this way and certainly won’t be pulling in leads either.
This is probably the easiest solution of the three we’ll go over, as the process of improvement in this area starts with your posts.
Here are some ingredients to get your recipe for social media engagement on track:
- Ask thought-provoking questions
- Directly address your audience (even if you’re not asking a question)
- Remember you’re trying to start a conversation (be resourceful or funny, make them want to respond)
Social media is not a one way street and if you ignore that it runs both ways, the activity on your page will show a direct reflection in a lack of overall community and action.
If a post is up and it’s generating some activity, your business needs to join the conversation. When you do join, look to take either resourceful or humorous angle. Both tones tend to bring people back to social media and wanting more of the conversation.
3. Get Visual
Think about the centerpiece on any Thanksgiving dinner table, that giant turkey all the dishes wrap around- this is what the content in social media represents. Yes, you can describe to your guests what the turkey will be like, but nothing makes them drool faster than when the main course is being placed in front of their eyes. The combination of effective content and strong imagery allows your audience to connect with your business in various ways, so use these tips to get the most out of your efforts:
In the B2B sector, you see a lot of this in social media:
- Repetition
- Standard writing (1-2 lines of text)
- Impersonality
Instead, these companies should be utilizing:
- Videos
- Pictures
- Infographics
They say a picture is worth a 1000 words and that definitely rings true in social media. Using visual content is about taking the same resourceful message and spicing it up for your audience. Think about your content in terms of its first impression. Is your audience more likely to consume something that’s visually stimulating or are they more likely to keep coming back to the plain, simple text? Using visuals and worthy imagery will have your audience coming back to your pages like they help themselves for seconds on Thanksgiving, and using the leftovers for days.
There are numerous other ways to boost your social media efforts, but take the time and concentrate on improving a few areas to start. Making these fixes will have a major long-term impact on your efforts and help you to get the engagement, community and potential leads you’ve been missing out on.
Want more out of your social media efforts? Feel free to comment and ask us further questions!
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photo by cnewtoncom