No Time to Tweet: Social Media Marketing for Busy Businesses
By Solomon Thimothy
While social media networks are free marketing platforms that can be utilized by small businesses to great effect, social media marketing itself can be incredibly time consuming. As a result, many small businesses put very little to no effort into social media marketing campaigns.
However, with the average American spending 37 minutes on social media every day, social media platforms offer an opportunity for businesses to connect with customers on a unique level. It’s not something that should be ignored.
But if you have been ignoring social media, maybe because you think you don’t have the time for it, keep reading. We’ll give you some tips to help you to implement an effective campaign quickly and efficiently.
1. Plan
Before you enter into any form of marketing campaign, it’s always wise to start with a plan.
Think about what you want to achieve from your campaign and consider how you are going to analyze your results. Do you want to reach a certain number of likes or shares? Or maybe you want to achieve a certain number of conversions.
By knowing what you want to accomplish beforehand you can focus your marketing, saving you time and effort.
2. Schedule
Once you have decided what you are going to do, your next step is to devise a schedule.
As an example, part of your campaign may involve writing a blog post, sharing that blog post on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn, and then initiating a related conversation on each of those sites. Schedule yourself time to write your blog post and share it. After you’ve shared it, create another small block in your day for interacting on social media.
Scheduling your time will give you a concrete sense of your campaign’s time requirements. And if you decide to pass your marketing over to another staff member, you will be able to give them clear guidance on how long the work should take.
3. Automate
Not every part of social media marketing needs to be performed manually.
The Jetpack WordPress plugin will automatically publish links to new blog posts on your site so you don’t have to. Different social media platforms such as Tweetdeck and Hootsuite allow you to schedule when you want your tweets to be published, either in a few hours or even weeks. Similarly, Facebook allows you to schedule your status updates. Services like Feedly let you curate an industry-specific virtual magazine stand from which you can share relevant articles with ease.
Each of the above tools can help to make the execution of your social media marketing strategy easy and effective.
4. Outsource
If you don’t have time to run your own social media campaign, consider outsourcing it to a marketing company. Many small business owners have done this successfully and reaped the rewards when their campaign took off.
If you decide to go down this route, ensure that the company you hire understands your industry, and more importantly, your business’ goals.
You would still be involved in the recruitment and planning stages, but your overall time commitment will be greatly reduced.
5. Pay
Setting up social media profiles and attracting followers can feel like you’re pulling teeth, especially in the early stages. If you want to get your campaign up and running quickly, consider paid social media advertising.
Most social media websites enable you to target demographics (location, age, etc.), and in some cases even specific qualifications, hobbies and more. Sponsored posts can help you to gain more followers, likes, retweets and shares. They can also help you to generate greater interest in your brand.
Don’t Delay
Whether you’re running a business or just starting out in social media marketing, don’t fret. These tips will put you on the road to success. Once you spend some time planning your campaign, you’ll find that it won’t eat up your day.
One thing is certain: don’t wait to capitalize on the opportunities that social media can bring. You can’t afford to miss out, so make a start right now.
Solomon Thimothy has built his career around his passion for helping other businesses grow an online presence and thrive in the digital world. Upon discovering the importance of competing online, Solomon wanted to create a more budget-friendly solution that allows every business the chance to thrive online. It is because of this passion that Clickx was born in 2006. Clickx provides budget-friendly, scalable marketing solutions to small and medium sized businesses nationwide.
