Social media has undoubtedly made its mark. The question that companies ask is no longer whether they should be using social media, but how to take the most advantage of it. With the potential to generate millions of visitors per year, it is only natural that every businessman wants to capitalize on the benefits of social networking. The question still remains, however. How does one profit from social media, and more importantly, why isn’t your current strategy not yielding expected result?
At its heart, social media is a simple, two-step process.
1. Create Content
2. Share The Content
As long as you are creating content, whether it is text, image, or both, and sharing it on a network where your user follow you, your website will get visitors from it. The key to successfully taking advantage of social media, however, lies in creating content that your user will like. More important still, you will need to create content that these users will want to share in their network. It needs to be entertaining or useful, or both. The only way in which you can grow big on social media, is through regular creation and sharing of content.
Before we can discuss how to go about finding the faults in your current strategy, and improving it, we must first quantify the benefits, and help draw focus on the ones which matter to you the most. So what exactly are the benefits of having an organized and well thought out presence on social media?
1. An active community of users and fans: This is an obvious benefit, and one of the first metrics that brands target when foraying into the brave new world of social media. The number of people who follow you on various networks are a clear number, and your focus is obviously on consistently increasing this number.
2. Hits for your website: Part of the reason brands creates social media accounts is so that they can direct their fans towards the website. The purpose of the website needs to be clear, however, as your strategy and content type will depend on it.
3. Your end goal: Depending on your business, you will have to optimize your strategy for a single major purpose. Are you looking for subscribers, or buyers? Do you generate revenue from ads, or from direct sales. These questions will decide where you focus on.
Where are you getting the strategy wrong?
Once you know what you should be getting out of social media, you can focus on what you are unable to achieve. Are you not getting enough fans or followers? If yes, then is your page or profile well designed, and your content relevant to your domain? Similarly, if you are not getting a lot of visitors on your website, even though a lot of people follow you, you may need to revise your strategy to focus on greater engagement.
- Identify where you are lacking
- Analyze the specific part of your strategy that is supposed to be addressing it
- Optimize the strategy and keep doing so until you get desirable results
While we are on the topic of optimization, how would you know whether you are doing it right, or wrong? Easy, you measure it!
Keep an eye on the metrics!
Your strategy will never go wrong if you keep a close eye on it and keep modifying it until you get desirable results. Figure out ideal times for posting, and determine the kind of content that gets you the most engagement. Plan it right, keep it flexible, and do not hesitate to mix it around until you get what you expected.