How to create a social media strategy you (and your customers) love

Social media can quickly become a burden for small businesses, another thing to add to the never-ending list of things to do and a chore that weighs around their necks day in and day out.

We get it, you’re already juggling a lot of plates, that the thought of having to put up consistent and quality tweets and IG Stories fills you with dread.

In fact, even us social media managers struggle to come up with content ideas for our own social accounts, let alone find the time to create and publish stuff.

Half the battle is finding the motivation.

We’ve rounded up a few tips that have helped us in the past when social media has felt more like a chore than something that can serve our business.

Create social media strategy you (and your customers) love

Choose platforms that suit you and your brand.

Too often, we see brands spreading themselves thinly across every single social media platform that has ever existed for the sake of “being on that platform”.

The attitude of some marketing agencies and experts is often “be everywhere”, but we have to disagree. For small businesses, it’s much more important to find one or two platforms that really work for your business rather than trying to create and manage content for every single one.

Finding out what strategy works best for you may require a little trial and error, but by refining and simplifying your approach to social media, you’ll be able to dedicate more time and energy into creating quality content.

Plan ahead and set aside a chunk of time.

There’s nothing worse than rushing to put up a post because “you have to”.

The funny thing about creativity is that you can’t turn it on and off again the same way as your bathroom tap.

Set aside a regular slot of time (either once per week, or even once per month) to sit down and plan what you’re going to be publishing on your social media accounts.

Dedicating an hour or so to plan multiple posts helps you come up with consistent content that has a real purpose. It’s a lot easier to get into a flow of creativity this way, as opposed to forcing yourself to come up with ideas on the spot every single day.

The more you plan ahead, the less last-minute panic you’ll experience and the more you’ll be able to get out of social media.

Start engaging.

One of the best ways to get the most out of social media is by engaging with your community. After all, connecting and being social is what social media is all about.

If you only ever have a one-way conversation with your audience (i.e. by posting “buy my products” style posts), you’re not going to get much engagement.

Follow and engage with others with similar interests to you/your business - it could be a like, retweet or share, or even a comment on one of their posts.

Note: Always make sure your engagement is of value and not spammy. We hate to see generic “Awesome 💯💯💯” comments, they aren’t genuine, and people can see through them. 

Usually, if you’re authentic and engage with people online, they’ll return the favour and begin to engage with the stuff you’re putting out there.

Invest in the right tools.

Social media is time-consuming: the planning, the creation, the publication, the engaging… the list goes on.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many shortcuts, but there are some tools out there that can help you speed up your creative process.

• Use a scheduling tool like Buffer or Hootsuite.

• Use Canva to quickly generate professional-looking, branded graphics.

• Use LastPass to securely save and automatically enter your passwords when switching between accounts.

• Use Grammarly to check your spelling and grammar.

• Use Asana to plan out and generate new content ideas.

Get an extra pair of hands.

Sometimes, with all the will in the world, it’s still hard to put your energy into creating social media content when you’re busy running a business.

A second pair of hands can make all the difference, whether you’re stuck for content ideas and need some advice, or you have ideas but you hate spending time formatting and scheduling everything.

And, we’re not just saying this to sell our services to you. We’ve actually sort help from designers and other social media marketers to help us gain a fresh perspective on our own social media strategy.

We work with our clients to help them generate new ideas, manage their accounts and publish consistent, quality content that is tailored to their target audiences. Please do get in touch today and we’d be happy to point you in the right direction of how to start on social media.