If you read our previous post, you know by now that your business should be using social media.

Social media is necessary to promote your company, but do you know how to actually use it effectively?

Like most aspects of your company, social media isn’t something you can do halfheartedly and expect great results. Using social media takes some strategic planning and effort, and you don’t want to post and share without forethought.

Here are some best practices of how-to and what social media platforms you should be using for your business.

Some baseline stats

Before we dive into the weeds of social and how to properly utilize its effectiveness, there are some things we should share with you.

First, every business should know where their ideal customers are, including where they are online. Before you start spending money and time on Facebook, LinkedIn, and the like, you need to identify who your ideal customer and prospect is.

You need to know things like:

• What websites your customers like to hang out on.
• Where your persona (audience) goes on the web during their lunch breaks.
• What websites they visit when they wind down from a long day.
• What online forums or websites your prospects visit while relaxing, on their days off.

To add to that, let’s look at the figures to help you better understand where your potential buyers spend their time, when online.

 

According to the data above, business to consumer (B2C) based businesses usually use Facebook the most, followed by Twitter, and Youtube. While business to business (B2B) audiences use Facebook, Linkedin, then Twitter.

So if Facebook is where your main prospects are, you should post more authentic content on Facebook vs Google Plus. You should also spend your time wisely, by posting content to the platforms your potential buyers are on, thus increasing your chances of them seeing your compelling, yet transparent content.

And don’t neglect the other social platforms just because your audience isn’t there 100% of their time. You should still be posting on other platforms for your buyers to see.

What should you post on Facebook?

Facebook is emotional. Which is why more friendships end in feuds because of topics that are politically charged and religious in nature.  Facebook is more social and community driven.

Facebook is the place that you can let your hair down and be more authentic. It’s a powerful platform, driven by engaging videos, images and controversial topics.

Some things to share on Facebook might be photos from a company outing, or perhaps an event where you volunteered. Consider sharing stuff from your Christmas party or workers serving at a soup kitchen, or during a United Way campaign.

Facebook helps give your business a personality. Be willing to create content that’s authentic. Be willing to talk about failures, faults, and times where you completely blew it, then conversely share these types of content on Facebook.

For example, did you take photos from a live event, or shoot a video? If you did, use Facebook to show off your company’s personality. Facebook will help you humanize your brand.

Facebook can be a platform for serious posts stuff also, but it’s probably not going to get as much interest as something authentic.

What should post on Linkedin?

LinkedIn is essentially Facebook for business. (we didn’t invent that term, btw).

LinkedIn is a place where you can share relevant content through Linkedin Publishing. LinkedIn Publishing is like having a blog, just on LinkedIn. This will help you drive traffic, promote premium content, and network online. LinkedIn still has a strong networking feel to it, and is great for more professional articles that will trend better over silly articles.

Don’t forget to give your LinkedIn business page a polished feel, and strive to be sharp in what you publish. First impressions can be a big deal, and your LinkedIn profile says less than that, you could be missing out.

What should post on Twitter?

Ah Twitter. Good old Twitter. Poor Twitter has had a rough 18 months. They’re endured multiple CEO’s, replaced their management team, and their stock price is down 32% since a year ago. (as of March, 2016)

But posting on Twitter is still very relevant. If you refer to the chart above again we can see that B2B business tend to be using twitter more than B2C companies.

There are a few things to keep in mind, when promoting content on Twitter.

• Twitter’s a great platform for tweeting out things like we do for our brand, ConnectBooster, for instance.
• Twitter is great for content promotion while attending trade shows, and other relevant business articles.
• Twitter’s not a place you go and host a lot of information. It’s a quick platform.
• Twitter needs to be utilized really well in order to be effective. Spend time on it daily.
• Twitter is great for keeping in touch with your followers.

Keep it simple on Twitter, simply sharing content and sharing relevant links, so your followers can find information that is helpful and purposeful to them.

And lastly, Google +

Google Plus may be a place for you to post frequently, but it probably won’t be your main focus.

However, your business will still need to have a Google Plus page.

Google really, really, really, really likes that you have a Google Plus page, because it’s Google and they want to promote their own platform.

It also helps what you do with your Google Plus page. For example, you will want to have your location-based info on it, along with the address and relevant contact info of your business, like phone number, etc.

If you haven’t put those on your Google Plus page, Google’s not going to put it on their search.

It’s been our experience that having a presence with a Google Plus page is important because it affects your local search value and some of your SEO value. At very least, set up your company Google Plus page even though you may not post to it often.

Social media can be a lot of fun, or very troubling. It’s all about perspective. Either way, you need to first identify where your persona spends their time, then craft a plan to promote your brand to that applicable social platform.

And if anyone ever tells you to not spend time on social media, run away. Run away from them. They don’t know what they’re talking about.

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That was a lot of info re: social media and how to better use it. We hope it was helpful.

How does your business use social to target your audience? Share with us by commenting below, or by leaving a comment on our Facebook page.