Have you got aim?

I regularly hear from people that they haven't got time to be on social media, or that it doesn't apply to them. 

I've written before about choosing the right platform for your business, it's true that each platform suits different business models better, but it's important to be on all platforms to maximise your visibility. I truly believe that all businesses can use social media as part of their marketing strategy, it's just about finding the right method.

When it comes to spending time on social media, if you are targeted and specific/relevant to your business you will have success. Don't get me wrong. Don't brag about how great you are and shout buy my stuff, let other people do that. Inform people about your area of business. Ie share some relevant blogs or articles from your industry. Demonstrate your knowledge. 

If you use automation, make it chatty as well as informative about you and your services and your industry. Make sure your content is relative to your business. Make sure the right people are hearing what you've got to say. 

Instead of ignoring businesses similar to yours, build relationships with them. Retweet them occasionally, you never know there may be an opportunity to work together or to refer each other. 

Before you start posting, decide what you want to achieve from social media. If you have a goal to work towards, your posts will be much more targeted, and you are more likely to get a positive relevant response. 

Having an effective social media strategy is vital in maximising your time on social media. For my clients I not only write thstrategies, but I also include an action sheet for them to follow, so they know what to do daily, weekly, bi- weekly and monthly. 

The biggest thing to remember about social media, which I say time and time again, is it's a marathon not a sprint, and you need to put the time in to build the relationships and it will take time to get the sales, but once they start happening you will see a dramatic increase in them, so keep going!

Having an effective social media strategy is vital in maximising your time on social media. For my clients I not only write their strategies, but I also include an action sheet for them to follow, so they know what to do daily, weekly, bi- weekly and monthly. 

My Guide To Writing A Social Media Strategy is nearly finished, I'll let you know when it's ready for sale! In the meantime, you can now do social media workshops for just £20pp, check out my website for more information!

Is the time right?

You know what they say about sales/comedy/business/life and just about anything else you can think of, it's all about timing.

The same is for Social Media. It's ALL about timing, well, okay not all, but it's pretty high on the list of things to get right!

I keep seeing people posting tweets/facebook updates at midnight and later. I might be seeing them, but there's not many other people who are as  insomniac as me, and unless you're targeting the American Market, there's very little point having tweets etc going out that late. I would also think that it would be really obvious that they're auto tweets, which people naturally filter out when they're reading through any of the social media platforms.

So, what's the best time for you to be posting? Well, you need to think about a couple of things.

1. Who is your target Market?

2. Which is their most populated platform?

3. Where are your competition posting?

4. Are they getting successful engagement?

And the most important thing:

5. What time are they likely to be on social media?

Let's take an example target group. Stay at home mothers of school age children. Age bracket 30-40 years old.

Ok, so, they're more likely to be on facebook than twitter or google plus, and highly unlikely to be on LinkedIn.

If you're a parent, you know how manic mornings can be, you know that you hardly have a  minute to breathe, let alone look at a computer/phone/ipad to check who's up to what before you've got them delivered to school.

Therefore, there's  little point in posting a lot of content before 8.30am. If you were using twitter, I would suggest you post a couple of tweets between 6.30 and 8, but for Facebook, you need to be very careful how often you update your page, so I would wait until the time is right.

You could wait until about 11am when most people sit down for a coffee and if they're like me, a biscuit, or just before school kick out time, when they might be waiting in the car for the bell to ring. If you're using twitter, I would aim for a tweet to go out at all those times.

Then, in the evening, there's no point posting until around 7, when Mum is (hopefully for them) sat down with a glass of wine having a catch up on facebook.

My point is this. You have to put yourself in your target market's shoes. Think about their lifestyle, and when they are most likely to be having a look at their computer or phone. Have a look at what works, and what doesn't work for your competitors and you can capitalise on that.

**edit** Thanks to Kevin for sending me the link to www.tweriod.com, which is a fab tool that tells you what time your users are twitter!

What you actually post is a whole mother kettle of fish, and one we can talk about another time.


****If you have found this blog helpful, please leave a comment, and you may be interested to know that I will soon be selling a social media template to help you construct your own campaigns. please email info@adoresocialmedia.co.uk****