As a business owner you have to wade through a lot of garbage advice to find the gold. It reminds me of the icebreaker game Two Truths and a Lie, except it seems for every truth out there, you find two lies, and you’ve got to figure out which tactics can really help and who is lying to you.
Templates for social media plans are all over the internet. Whether you’re a florist or a car dealer, I’m betting you can find a social media plan template that is made just for you…and everyone else in your industry. Templates can be helpful to get your creative juices flowing, but how can you expect to make your business be seen above all the digital noise if you’re using the same template as everyone else? In the decade (yikes that makes me feel old) I’ve been coming up with social media plans for small businesses, and managing them, I’ve learned a few things about how to love the plan you have.
If you’re trying to get peoples’ attention on social media, you’re going to need them to ‘slow the scroll’ and actually look at your content. Here are a few things you can do to help with that.
As I’m writing this I’m recovering from of one of the most stressful periods of my entire adult life. This summer we decided it was time to downsize our home. My step son was moving out (hey, not all millennials live with their parents forever) and with one less person in the house, our three … Read more
Building a social media strategy for your business isn’t rocket science. It’s actually quite simple. But, just because it’s simple, doesn’t mean it’s easy! The “meat” of your social media strategy is a content calendar–a plan for what and when you will post your content. Before you get to that point, however, you need to think about a few other things: what type of content your audience wants, who your audience is, and what type of content you can reliably produce.
If you take a bit of time to work through each of the steps you can build a social media strategy you can handle on your own.
Attention seekers on Instagram, listen up. STOP using Instagram photo tags to get my attention! You got my attention alright…but it’s not good attention. You’re annoying me. This unwanted advance makes me want to bury your quite legitimate efforts rather than repost them, or call you to work with us. There is a right way, and a VERY wrong way to use Instagram photo tags. If you’re new to the platform, I’ve got some pretty pointed thoughts for you.
What do my cats and a Jesus fish have to do with social media? Well, it makes for a compelling introduction to How to Avoid Facebook Jail, for sure!
Social media is time-consuming. It’s as much art as it is technology. It’s new and complex and frustrating. Every business owner feels that way at some time or another. When I’m coaching clients I try to encourage patience, long-term visioning and planning. Some people take longer than others to join me in this position.
“I’m looking for a loophole, a quick fix, the easy way to do this,” one person said to me.
Here are my thoughts on that view of social media.
Google returns over 943 million results when you search for “What is the best time to post”. Over 943 MILLION! WHEEEEEE-EW. That’s a lot of people, writing a lot of opinions on when the best time to post your content is on social media. Every article uses a different methodology for measuring their results. Every writer has a particular bias. Most of these articles about timing your posts are written from the perspective of global companies, not small, local businesses. So here it is–the definitive answer on the ever-popular question “When is the best time to post?”
In my last blog post, I talked about content strategy for building your expert status. Perhaps that isn’t your goal and instead you are trying to educate your followers about something. Building content that educates can look very different from content that builds reputation. Here are some ideas for your content when you are trying … Read more
