Tuesday, 27 May 2014

Social Media Recipe for Success: The Sequel - Part I - Understand Social Media

Back in 2013 we blogged about our popular 'social media recipe for success' series and now, another year on, we thought we'd take the previous parts of strategy, content, organisation and evaluation and add to the recipe with this post 'Understand Social Media'...


By no means do you have to be an expert to have a successful social media presence but you do need to understand the basics of social media (from a brand's point-of-view rather than a personal one) and ultimately have the passion for social media to take it forward.

Step One - Use Social Media
Yes, posting on social media is very different from a brand or individual's perspective but actively using social media yourself can help you to understand what your consumers want to see and how to post effectively. From now on, when you are on social media, take notes of other brands you like the activity of, record how you use social networks as a consumer and jot down any areas of each platform you don't understand.


Step Two - Learn
In order to effectively understand how to use social media for your brand we'd recommend you get learning in your own time! There are so many great blogs (favourites are Mashable, Social Media Examiner and ours of course!) that give you to-the-point, simple information so you can answer the questions you had from step one.


What's great about social media is you can test out your new knowledge on your own social platforms before experimenting on the brand page but remember; you can't really 'go wrong' on social media as long as your content is appropriate, it's all about trying things, if they don't work discover why and move on.

Step Three - Nail Your Plan


So now you know how to use social media and have a basic knowledge - it's time to get started with your strategy. For a simple strategy you need to answer...
  • Why do I want to be active on social media?
  • What are my objectives?
  • Which platforms is my target audience on?
  • What are my three key messages?

Of course this is a very basic strategy starting point but it gives you a few things to think about before simply jumping onto social media with no plan at all. We created a Facebook Strategy eCourse with SkillShare which gives video lessons and practical exercises finishing with a full Facebook strategy at the end here - take a look at the chapters even if you don't fancy completing the course for an outline.

Step Four - Constantly Explore
Once you nail your strategy and become active on social media you may find yourself sticking to one platform that you personally enjoy or you are having more success on but you need to be open to exploring other platforms.


You may want to achieve an objective of 'increase web referrals from social media by 25%' and you may be doing a good job of that on Twitter with external links and interesting tweets but did you know that Pinterest drives the most traffic on the web after Facebook? Maybe your users are more visual and enjoy pinning and repinning images... increase your research and you may find you're able to reach even more people online.

Each month, set a goal of exploring the pros and cons for your brand of some of the emerging platforms like Google+, Vine and Snapchat. This will also help you expand your social media knowledge and spark ideas for you to utilise on the core social media networks.

We'll blog about part II of our new 'social media recipe for success' soon but in the meantime take a look at the links below for other social media blog posts you may enjoy!

Jane x

1 comment:

  1. Social media is also extremely important for job search. And there are even
    professional resume services review, where you can select the specialist for preparing resume or improving social profiles.

    ReplyDelete