Social media still comes with a lot of questions.
Here are the top questions we receive about social media.
Does my business need to be on social media?
The short answer is yes. It helps you stay top of mind with the people you already know (those who like/follow you), and through ads/boosts, it helps you connect with the people you would like to reach.
In addition, when people learn about a new company, they often do three things: check out the company’s website (oh, and we build websites if you need one), look at the company’s reviews, and scroll their social media. These three create the overall impression of your business.
How do I pick which platforms are most important?
YouTube and Facebook are at the top of the charts regarding usage, but part of your decision making should be based on the people you are trying to reach.
You may find this article to be a helpful read. In that article, scroll down to “who uses each social media platform” and click on each of the tabs to see the percentages of usage per platform. You’ll see why Facebook still is in the lead with YouTube. Only Instagram comes close to them for the age range of 18-29.
How often should I post?
This decision is based on your industry and time/budget.
- Look at your competitors. Will you stand out because they are inconsistent with posting? Or are they posting a couple of times a week or daily?
- If you are going to do your own social media strategy, graphics and content, how much time do you have to devote to this? Do what is realistic with your schedule.
- If you are going to outsource the strategy, graphics and content (to a company like us), what’s your budget to do so? And of course, what’s your budget for ads/boosts?
For most, posting two or three times a week works, but as you can see, your industry and time/budget are major factors in this decision.
Before moving on to the next question, let’s talk about sharing your Facebook business posts on your personal page. I recommend doing this once a week or at least two times a month. Because the algorithms affect how many people see an unboosted post, sharing the post to your personal page helps with the reach.
What do I even say?
Spend some time thinking through your strategy.
- Videos: You may have the bandwidth to do a self-created video each week. Or you may hate doing videos, so you’ll decide to do one a month because you know how important videos are.
- Photos of you, your team, and your customers/clients/patients: Photography with real people makes a connection. It helps with the personal connection. Rory Vaden puts it perfectly, “People do business with people, not companies.”
- Blogs/articles: If you have a website and can blog (yes, we do that for our clients too), share your blog posts on social media. If you come across a relevant article that’s worth a share, do a post and include a link to that article.
- Feel-good posts: Think of the feel-good posts as your holiday posts, motivational or industry-related quotes, etc.
- Humor and fear: Content that is funny and content that invokes a fear of whatever a person may be missing create an emotional response which often works well.
- Stories: People connect with stories. This is an ideal way to reach people and relate to them.
- Input: Posts that ask for input so people will comment are great ways to build interaction.
- Products/services: Be careful here. People are on social media to see what’s going on with friends and family, to be entertained, and stay informed. Think about what your own reaction is when you see a post that’s trying to sell you something. Which of those types of posts do you scroll past, which cause you to pause to get a sense of the product/service, and which have you actually stop and fully read/view it or even read the comments and click on the link or go to the website? Document those reactions for the next few days. What your reactions are can give you a good sense of what will work for your own audience in terms of sharing info about your products/services.
Do I need to pay to advertise?
Focusing on the top two platforms, both Facebook and YouTube have advertising options to better reach your audience. With Facebook, you can utilize their relationship with Instagram and choose to advertise on both when you create an ad. In the Facebook environment, you need to decide between boosting a post or creating an ad (or both). I like to test both to see what the results show. It helps me determine where it makes sense to put my advertising budget. In comparison to other forms of advertising, this is still a reasonable spend. Without it, your posts may not get the views you want, even by people who like/follow your business page. Please note that you can only boost or do ads from a Facebook business page, not a personal page.
In regards to YouTube advertising, some think it is more difficult since it uses a cost per thousand approach which can be confusing. Do your research. You can find a lot of guidance online – although everyone seems to have “the best” strategy, so beware.
We are here for you!
We love helping our clients. Let’s have a conversation about your social media. We would be honored to help.