So you’ve boot strapped your business and all your available resources are going to cost of goods and employees. That’s pretty normal for many small business owners –and we’re not here to tell you it’s a bad strategy for the upsell!
But you do need some guidance, not all social media activities are worth your time, and we’re here to support you to get to that next level.
You may not intend (or know how) to participate on each social media channel, but having your username matching on all channels and having the channels will help with your comany indexing in Google search results. So go and grab them all. Then find out the best ways to optimize so that your services and products get indexed on those platforms, especially the ones that are indexed on Google. First and foremost is your: logo, some photos, services and products, brand story, and contact information. Basically, if there is a spot to put something, make sure that’s full to its capacity and use specific nouns.
You will want to share your products and services website pages on your social accounts. Much of your content should push your audience back to your website. That means that you’re also going to want to start blogging. This will give you content to work with on all your social and newsletters or e-blasts. The key for Google search is to make it consistent, so think about the keywords you want to rank for, and write for an audience. Something that’s not always considered is consistency. Rather than blogging full steam ahead and putting out articles twice a week for one month and then nothing for 3 months. Choose a sustainable frequency and be consistent. Google rewards consistency. Your social channels will then have consistent posts also because you’ll share your blog posts on all channels.
One often missed opportunity is posting regularly on your Google Business Profile. Make sure your social posts land here, especially your blog content. You will also want to reply to reviews as they come in, and add all your products and services. We recommend a consistent posting schedule, over time to get those organized and map your products properly to match your website.
Video content is the most privileged type of media content on all the channels. Algorithms love it! So make it more often than not. Create a blog post for it, with at least 350 words to acommpany it, and upload it directly to all your social channels. Still point people back to your website, but put the link in the status, rather than making a link post. Video hosted in the platform will perform better than YouTube video share links, but don’t neglect YouTube. You will want to optimize your video on YouTube, because it’s the next biggest search engine after Google, and, your can use the embed code as the way to get the video on your blog post.
Your newsletter list is the next most important asset to your website because you own that audience and it’s not affected by algorithmic changes, as is in the case of social media channels. When you add a new blog post to your site, use that as content for your newsletter. Make sure you only include a snippet of the content, like a teaser and send people to the page with the full article on your website. Basically, if you want to say something on your newsletter, it should live on your blog and get distributed via your newsletter and social accounts.
If you’re going to make a piece of content, put more money into its distribution. This can mean adding paid advertisements to the mix. One piece of content can last a very long time if it’s not controlled by the algorithm and gets sent to thousands of viewers rather than a few hunderd. See what your organic reach is on all channels and decide where your best placement for ad budget is. You will always get farther faster with ad spend. As soon as you have budget, jump!
Having a content calendar will keep you on track so that you’re not rushing through. your holiday campaigns, or forgetting to launch them at all! Key into relevant campaigns that are already happening in the worls, like the #BuyLocal, #InternationalWomensDay #BlackFriday, to name a few. Find ones that are on-brand for you. Plan ahead. It’s always easier to participate in something that’s already happening than start something yourself. Check with your local Business Associaltion or favourite networking groups for ideas. Google silly days like #SpeakLikeaPirateDay or #MayTheFourthBeWithYou and see if any of those make sense for your vision, products or target market. Planning ahead will allow you to bring in a designer to create special images that have your branding on them.
and finally…
While other ROI measuring tools may be fine to check to see how you’re doing, nothing can report better than Google Analytics for a couple of reasons. Facebook tells you how many people click to your site, but only Google Analytics can tell you what happened to that traffic. Did they leave? How long did they visit? How many pages did they view? Where were they when they left the site? Did they perform any actions? Which social platforms are bringing the most useful traffic? And test and tweak. Because not all businesses are the same and averaging posting times, frequency and the like won’t give you the info that the data you collect. And if you haven’ts set up your G4 analytics yet, do so now!
If you found this information useful and would like a bit of custome training to get your social media strategy worked out and implented with a good amount of hand-holding, then you might be interested in our 24 Week Social Media Training programme. If you’re a registered business in British Columbia, you may qualify for 80% back from the BC Government. Ask us how!
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