A few months back, I volunteered on a team to help a non-profit organization come up with a social media strategy to get more buzz going around an annual event that they were hosting. The non-profit was a very small business and was surely understaffed for the goals they had lined up. However, social media is a powerful tool – especially when it comes to small companies and personal branding.
Our job was to help this organization spread the word of their event though the use of Facebook and Twitter platforms, as well as providing them with some direction and education to continue this strategy without help from an outside source.
My team collectively came up with a beautiful presentation for the organization. We gave them tips, a potential editorial calendar for postings, links and sources to grab content from based on their topic and needs, basic knowledge and information about the platforms, and even created their first few posts on their behalf. We laid out an entire strategy for their team with a specific purpose based on the intended audience. Perfect. We nailed it!
Then, after the presentation, we heard a sentence that sounded like nails on a chalkboard to us: “This is all great – but my team simply doesn’t have time.”
Defeat.
We had worked for a full day to create a plan that had high potential for success, and it was shot down because of the fact that this organization had a small team. Here’s where I disagree (blatantly): Your company DOES have the time to create a presence on social media. And so do you personally.
Seeing as you probably got to this post by way of a social site, I realize that I am preaching to the choir. But, hopefully you can find a way to take this information and share it with the social media naysayers.
These tips can be used to build both a small business brand as well as your equally important personal brand. In the next few weeks, I will go into more details on some of these ideas, so stay tuned! OH! And if you want to add to this list of social media greatness, send me an email and I’ll begin compiling your ideas for a future post.
1. Familiarize yourself with the platforms. If you’re unfamiliar with a social site or are wondering why you should be using it, ask someone to help you (ahem… like me…. *Cough, Cough*).
2. Decide on your social goals. What do you want to gain from having a social presence? How can your audience benefit from this online community? If you’re trying to build a personal brand to land a job, decide how you want to be represented online. You claim your reputation, and then build on it through your social presence.
3. Create content (for those with time), or find already-created content relevant to your message to share with your audience (i.e. news pieces and other helpful resources).
4. Utilize scheduling tools to take away the stress of day-to-day social management. (I use HootSuite for Twitter).
5. Create a voice for your pages, and stick with it. Want to be funny? Weird? Serious? Professional? Pick one!
6. Engage when you can… ask your audience what they would like to know, and how you can help them. When they give you their thoughts, listen, learn, and respond.
7. Keep it current. 3-4 posts per week on Facebook will keep you relevant enough to grow your audience. Find or create the content ahead of time so that you’re not constantly searching and digging for new posts on a daily basis (this is where the time suck comes in).
8. Share, share, and share some more. The beauty of social media is that it’s instantaneous… share it! Cell phones make this quick and painless.
Again, I will go into more detail on some of these tips in the next few weeks, but if you have any questions now as to how you or someone you know can get started, let me know!
Cheers,
Jessie