It's never to late to prepare your Social Media Marketing Strategy for 2016 but with only 4-days left, the time really should be now. ________________________________________________________ Welcome to Part 3 of my 3-part Blog Series, featuring tips to help make your Social Media Marketing ROCK!! in 2016. Here are tips 9 through 12. 9. LIVE STREAMING: Your audience wants to interact with you NOW!! Live events are becoming increasingly popular and in 2016 and beyond, it will be the norm. You will want to add to your 2016 calendar, special live online events such as a Q & A Sessions, Tips and Tricks Sessions or even a live video presentation. In the moment is where it's going to be at in 2016. Time to get on board. 10. WEBSITE: Don't forget about your website. Yes, you want to increase your following on your social media sites but you also want to see your following engaged on your website as well. Having a Blog, a Q&A Page and an Informative page about your business will help to boost traffic from your social media platforms to your website. Remember to also keep your website updated and fresh. 11. OVERSELLING: Rule Of Thumb is the 80/20 Rule. 80% of the content on your Social Media accounts should be about what your audience wants to see. Cater to their wants, needs and desires. Showcase your product/service in a compelling way, a way that resonates with your audience. Tell your business story but do so in a personable manner. The other 20% is all about you, what your business, your product/service can do for your audience. Share with them the What, Why and How. What your product/service is, Why they should choose your product/service and How to go about doing so. "Be Authentic, Be True, Be Real, Be You" ~ V. Harris 12. VALUE: My final tip is all about Value. Does what you are posting and sharing have value? When someone visits one of your social media platforms, they should leave with something that they didn't have before. something, that will add value to their everyday life, whether it be personally or professionally. Your content should be something they can use right away, instant gratification of sorts. It could be a quote, something funny, educational, a tip or trick or even just something informative. It's all about the value you are providing to your audience. Ensure your content has it and your Social Media Marketing will definitely ROCK!! in 2016. I hope you enjoyed my Blog Series. Stay tuned for more great Blogs in 2016. Thanks for reading and please, feel free to share. Happy 2016 Everyone. Valarie Harris
Founder/President
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With only 11 days left in 2015, the time to prepare your 2016 Social Media Marketing Strategy is NOW!! Welcome to Pt2 of my 3-part Blog Series, featuring tips to help you ROCK!! your Social Media Marketing in 2016. Here are tips 5-8 5. ANALYZE: It's definitely time to learn the word and start using analytical tools, to better understand your social media marketing efforts. If you are not analyzing your social media marketing metrics, you are so wasting your time. It's like flying an airplane blindfolded. OK, maybe that's a bit drastic as an example but you get my gist. Not knowing who your target audience is, where they are from, what times they are on and what post they resonate with most, well then, you might as well not use social media at all because marketing blindfolded is exactly what you are doing, seriously, it's that serious. Most platforms today, make it easy for you to see where your time and effort is well spent and where and what you may need to spend more time on. Google Analytics is a great place to start, it can show you exactly where you are winning on Social Media. If you are not sure as to how to go about analyzing your social media marketing, you may want to think about asking an expert to help you out. It will be well worth your time. 6. OVER POSTING: It's a good idea to post often but also remember not to over or under do it. Over posting will cause your post to flood your audiences newsfeed and that's a very quick way for your fans and followers to lose interest in what you have to share and possibly lose them for life. What could happen when you under post, is that, what you are sharing could get lost in the feeds of your audience, especially not knowing how many people or pages they follow. The more they follow, the less likely they will see what you are sharing. 3-4 times a day, on average is a good idea but remember, for tip number #6, the rule is to do tip #5. 7. IMAGE CREATIVITY: It's time to get funky with your images. Have some fun and let your creative juices flow. Use sites like Canva, Pic Monkey and LunaPic to add some spice and fun to your images. Show your personality in your images, make it yours. 8. CROSS PROMOTING: You want to ensure that you are making it easy for your Audience to connect with you no matter where they are, what device they are using or what platform they are one. You should have links and/or buttons from your social media platforms to your website and Vice Versa. You should also do this for your email marketing and traditional marketing such as flyers and business cards. I hope these tips will help you get started in the right direction. Tips 9-12 coming soon. Stay tuned. Thanks for reading and please, feel free to share. Valarie Harris I always get asked the question, when is the right time to post on Social Media? Social Media is a living entity, that is always evolving, growing and changing and we as marketers must adapt to those changes, therefore there really is no simply answer. I will say that it is imperative that you know your business and know your audience. Consistently studying your analytics, will help you in determining, your best time to post. Every business is different and unique and so is the audience that follows. Don't forget that every #Socialmedia platform is different as well. The engagement may differ platform to platform on different days. I also know that there is a ton of information out there with different theories and conclusions but it's all based on averages and generalization. Take the averages and test them with your own business and see what results you get. Bottom line is, knowing these general averages and knowing and understanding your own analytics, will make you a winner when it comes to posting on Social Media, at the right times for your business. Check out my General and Averages chart below. __________________________________ FACEBOOK: Mon, Tues and Thurs are best before 12pm and after 5pm. Wed is the slowest day, Don't post on Fri after 3pm. Sat and Sun mornings are good. TWITTER: Mon-Fri, during standard business hours are best. Wed, seems to be the best day, all day long. PINTEREST: Sat and Sun are the best days, all day Mon-Fri after 12pm. LINKEDIN: Mon-Fri, during standard business hours, early morning being the optimal time. Weekends are a little slow but weekend mornings are good. GOOGLE+: This platform is one of those trickly one. What I've found is that mid day seems to be the best times to post, Tue-Thurs. With the other days being a hit or miss. Hope this tips helps. :D Thanks for reading and please feel free to share. V. Harris With only 21 days left in 2015, now is a pretty good time to start planning your '2016 Social Media Marketing Strategy' I've created a 3 part blog series, sharing various tips, you can do, to make your social media marketing ROCK!! Here are tips 1-4 to get you going. 1. CLEAN UP. Whatever platform you are on, it's time to go through and get rid of, delete, unfollow and dis-connect unresponsive and inactive fans, followers and connections. Make room for the ones who really want to be engaged on your pages. 2. PLAN AND CREATE. What are you waiting for. Get your social media strategy for 2016 going. Determine what platforms you are going to focus on. What days and times are you going to curate, create and post. Using a social media or content calendar and a social media managing system like Hootsuite, will be crucial with this task. 3. MARKETING BUDGET. It's going to be very important to set and maintain a marketing budget, mainly for paid advertising purposes. Setting limits, analyzing your target base demographics and understanding CPC (Cost Per Click) or PPC (Pay Per Click) and CPA (Cost Per Action) advertising, will alleviate over spending and lack of response. 4. VIDEO. It's definitely time to get with the program and start integrating video into your social media marketing. I actually need to get on this myself. Video marketing is the way of the future. It's visual, it's vocal and it's engaging which, isn't that what being social is all about? It's that engagement piece and video marketing, will help you reach your engagement goals. I hope these tips will help you at least get started in the right direction. Tips 5-8 coming soon. Stay tuned. Thanks for reading and please, feel free to share. V. Harris |