Professional Social Media Tactics You Can Do Today

Sep 20, 2019Uncategorized

Digital Marketing is a very complicated industry, there are so many options to choose from starting with social media, SEO, content marketing, email marketing, retargeting, paid advertisements, and the list goes on and on … the hard truth is that all of these options are best practice. As an individual practice, you will see some results, but to see accurate results, you need a combination of online platforms and strategies.

There is no actual silver bullet for getting exposure and results for your business so what I will do for you today, is provide some professional tools and tactics that you can apply to your business today. We will focus on Social Media for now because there is so much to talk about and so little time.

Running Social Media like an expert

Social Media practices and tactics are at the top of our requests from customers, at Digital Empire Marketing we choose not to take over social media accounts for customers due to the fact that no one is a better voice for your business than yourself!

This is always difficult for business owners to realize because they rarely have the time to manage social media on top of keeping their business afloat, so below are some power tools and strategies that will get you results but also save you valuable time to produce.

 

Q: What social media should I focus on?
A: The honest truth is that it all depends on your ideal customers and where they hang out online.

Your audience is spread out through the internet, and it is your job as an expert in your field to find those people. The best start to finding these customers is asking yourself where you like to see your industry related content.

I.e., Interior design inspiration: Instagram, blogs, YouTube, Pinterest | Cocktail ideas: Instagram, Youtube, Google searches, bloggers | Politics: Twitter, Facebook, Blogs

When deciding on your social media platforms as a local business, also keep in mind where locals hang out and how to focus your time on them instead of international audiences that won’t be purchasing from you any time soon. Facebook groups and Instagram are ideal for local interest.

After identifying your social media, you need to create and attack plan that will get you in front of the social media followers that matter. What content do your customers want to see? What direct/indirect competitors of yours are they following? What differentiates your business from competition?

This brings us to the content calendar.

Content Calendar:

Content calendars are always our starting point when it comes to social media, you can use any calendar tool you like to plan out your posts, but we prefer tools like Zaptrick for Instagram where you can drag and drop your content on a future date, add your descriptions, tags, location,etc.… and the software will post on your behalf.

So now all you have to do is sit down one day gather your photos and videos from your phone and upload them to your content calendar with descriptions for the next few weeks or months and let the software take care of the rest. 

This tool will shave off days from your workload! 

Content Strategy:

Content rules the internet, and it is also the most time-consuming portion of social media. How do I keep my Instagram/Facebook engaging? How do I get the absolute most from my content creation days? What do I post?

The best start for your content strategy is a reference to national brands that are in your industry for inspiration. DO NOT copy your local competitors because they are most likely copying others and now your content is a knock off of a knock off. Piggyback on businesses that have the budget to pay for a marketing team, since you may not have these luxuries might as well stand on the shoulders of giants.

If you want to be efficient with your content, we are big fans of Gary Vaynerchuck’s “Content Model.” To simplify, start with large media such as video, audio recordings, photoshoots, blogs, and chop them up to different formats depending on the platform you are most dominant.

Here is an example of how to be efficient with video: Record a long-format video for youtube or Facebook video such as a walkthrough to make the perfect old fashion cocktail. Cut that video into 15-30 second clips and screenshot stills from the video, and you now have content you can spread out through the month. Don’t post all these mini content pieces at once, make sure to be efficient and spread them out between your other posts so that your followers stay interested and engaged.

Finding your voice

This is probably the most challenging portion when it comes to your online presence because only you can decide this based on your personality, expertise, and appeal. Some business owners love being on camera others will have a staff member that knows what they are talking about being the face, but you need to decide your voice and stay consistent with it.

Consistency is key

If you aren’t posting something daily, you are wasting effort. Stories are a great way to stay consistent with content without needing much effort, and you can schedule these posts!

A rule of thumb to live by with social media is, “respect the platform and the platform will respect you. Instagram wants more power users so show them that you love their platform by posting as often as possible, writing comments on other users’ content, share content, use their content tools such as hashtags and story polls and Instagram will want to show you to more followers.

If you want more ideas on how to grow your Instagram, check out our presentation for growing your account.

Stay fresh and have fun!

Social Media is designed to be fun and exciting, so have fun being creative and continually trying new things!