How to Manage Your Social Media

Managing your social media is important to prevent it from eating up too much of your time. Many business owners want to effectively manage their social media accounts but don’t know how to go about it. This short guide will cover the most important aspects of managing social media to improve how you use this type of marketing as well as spend less time on it.

Monitor the Hashtags Your Target Audience Uses

Discover what hashtags are most used by your audience and then regularly check those hashtags to see what they say about relevant topics in your industry. This will give you ideas for future social posts, content, and marketing.

Another benefit of monitoring relevant hashtags is the opportunity to engage with your audience. If someone asks a question that you, as an expert in your field can answer, go for it! He/she will be happy to have an answer and will thus be more inclined to check out your business.

Check Your Brand’s Hashtag

People will talk about you on social media, sometimes adding a hashtag your brand name. Routinely check the social posts under your brand’s hashtag to see what’s being said about you. Reply to a mixture of positive and negative comments to show customers that you care about them. By keeping up with what others think of your brand, you can improve the service you provide and present yourself as a company that actually listens.

Use Social Media Management Tools

Doing all of the above manually is time-consuming and easy to neglect when you don’t have an efficient process for tackling the tasks. This is where social media management tools come in place. Experiment with different tools until you find the ones that work best for you. Here’s a few good social media management tools to get you started:

  • Buffer: This tool allows you to schedule your social posts in one sitting, so you don’t feel stressed out trying to sign onto social media during key times of the day.
  • Hootsuite: With Hootsuite, you can manage all of your social media from one dashboard. This saves you from the inconvenience of signing into your different accounts.
  • IFTTT: Standing for “if this, then that”, IFTTT is a social media management tool that automates tasks and notifies you when something important happens on social media based on what you think is important for your brand. For example, you can receive notification when someone mentions your business.

Write a Social Media Marketing Plan

Just as having a business plan is important, you need a social media plan too. Without a social media plan, you will lack direction, focus, and consistency with your social media usage. This will waste valuable time that could have been spent on other tasks for your business.

The first step in writing a social media marketing plan is to define your goals and objectives. What do you want to accomplish with your social media usage? What are your KPIs (key performance indicators)? Your social media goals should align with your company’s marketing strategy because the point of getting on social media is to accomplish your business objectives.

After knowing specifically what you want to achieve with your social media, create a content plan and determine which days you will post at what time. The times you schedule content should be when your target audience is on that particular social media site. You can find that information through social media analytics.

Conclusion

Social media is a great marketing tool that isn’t expensive to use. Time is more valuable than money, however, so you shouldn’t spend too much time on your social media accounts. To most effectively use social media for your business, you should monitor hashtags, engage with your target audience and customers, and follow a concise social media marketing plan. The use of social media management tools makes these tasks easier to handle.

Contact us if you need a helping hand in managing your social media.