In a previous article, we talked about the need to promote yourself first on social networks and not your properties. In this post, we’ll look at the first steps you should take to dive into the seas of social media.
1. Determine your target audience.
You want to be followed on social networks by people who have the potential to become your customers. The good news is that you are already working with customers, so you know who they are, what they have in common, and what they are interested in. If you’re not sure that you know, you can always use live interactions with current customers to clarify the issues that matter to you. Such information is particularly valuable for strategic decisions on what, how, and where to communicate.
2. Find inspiring examples and analyse them
If you already use social networks, you probably follow at least a few people who are neither your friends nor your acquaintances, but whose content you find interesting. Maybe they are journalists, politicians, economists, designers, or musicians. It doesn’t matter who they are, whether they are from Lithuania or abroad. Look not only at their individual entries, but at the bigger picture: do they have a single theme, a pet topic, or do they talk about everything and anything? Are you interested in what they say or how they say it? How often do they communicate? How do they communicate with their followers? In these examples, try to understand what you like and what you wouldn’t want to try.
3. Think about your communication strategy
Thinking about your target audience, their interests, and hobbies, choose one or more social networks where you want to build your brand as a professional. Then think about how you want to present yourself. Seeing the good examples you like will help you do this. Think not only about what you want to talk about, but also about your tone and the communication tools you will use. For example, if you are uncomfortable speaking in front of a camera (even the one on your phone), but find it easy to express yourself in writing, then that may be a better choice. If you make a lot of mistakes in your posts, it’s better to go for a video format. And so on. It’s important to keep in mind that social networks are different, and the expectations and tone of communication are different, so you need to adapt to that.
4. Take care of the aesthetics of your profile
Make sure that the information about you that other users see is consistent with your communication strategy. Think about what your profile picture should look like, what should be written in the "about you". All of this should look appealing to your target audience and not fall out of the overall context of the chosen social network. Get the basic stuff like privacy settings sorted too − if you want to collect followers, make sure your content isn’t only shown to your friends, so no one can tag you in photos or posts without your approval. If you start using an account for public communication that was previously used only for personal purposes, look carefully at your past posts and photos to make sure they don’t contain anything inappropriate (for example, drunken photos from a friend’s wedding).
5. Create a communication strategy.
Yes, that’s right − a plan. How many times per day/week/month do you intend to publish the content you create, and at what time of day (this may vary by social network)? What will be the content? What topics are you going to talk about? Maybe your target audience is sitting in their offices on Fridays, pretending to work while waiting for the weekend, when in reality they are browsing social networks and reading articles that interest them. If that’s the case, you want to be in their sights on Friday. On the other hand, if you find that your customers are more relaxed at the beginning of the week and impossible to catch on Fridays because they are frantically finishing up the week’s work, then don’t even try to catch them then. This part is probably the most difficult and requires a lot of experimentation.
6. Do, review, change, do, review, change
Then it’s just a matter of putting your plan into action. Set a time frame for how long you are going to do what you have done (e.g., a month). Then look at the results. Maybe your weekend posts are getting more attention than you expected, and nobody responds at the beginning of the week? Maybe some topics get more attention than others? Maybe video is more popular than articles? Is it better to respond to short entries or detailed opinions? Review these things, keep what works, change what doesn’t. Don’t stop experimenting.