Simplifying Social Media Marketing (why NOT to overthink it)

Social Media Marketing and promotion can be a bit difficult to navigate.

In other areas such as your website, you know you need to put some content up and take care of all of the other necessary AND typical promotional activities.

It’s like buying a house, having a housewarming party, then letting people know where you live.

It’s not rocket science and you can get it figured out pretty quick.

However, when it comes to social media marketing for small businesses, this is where it can get a bit complicated.

At the push of a button on your SmartPhone, you can see what everyone in your network is up to.

People post pictures, create videos, quotes, and tons of other content to let people know where they are, what they are doing, and what they plan on doing.

It’s a living entity for all to see and if you aren’t caring for it properly, then it typically fades away into the wild blue yonder of the Internet.

Used correctly, though, and it could drive tons of targeted traffic to your properties, and eventually to your offers.

Here’s the social media million dollar question – How do you handle it, where do you post, when do you post, and what do you post?Click To Tweet

Okay…million dollar questions.

Let’s break them down one by one.

How Do You Handle It?

There are really no hard and fast rules here.

Some people, some businesses, and some organizations post daily and sometimes multiple times in a day on their platforms.

Some choose to post every few days while others seem to post once a week.

There are three things you need to take into account such as:

• Your Audience – Whom are you serving?  Is your audience from a generation who is constantly on their phone waiting for status updates, OR is your audience less technologically savvy?  You will find many of the answers in regards to your posting by looking at WHOM you are posting for.
• Your Platform – This is a VERY important piece of information to consider.  Your Facebook account is much different than your LinkedIn page.  What we mean by that is you may be prone to post pictures of that drunken party you attended this past weekend on Facebook for all of your friends to see, BUT you may not necessarily want that up on your professional pages such as LinkedIn.
• Your Niche – What niche area are you in?  This goes alongside your audience and should really be taken into consideration.  Is your niche in the product creation area, where you’ll most likely be getting visits to your website as opposed to your social media accounts?  Are the individuals in your niche turned off by promotional offers made on your social media platforms?  While there is a possibility you might be over promoting, understanding your niche will help you navigate these waters a little better.

One of the answers to the question of HOW you handle it is to schedule it out.

Take a look at the randomness that happens with some social media accounts.

You’ll see that there may be a time where constant posts are made in a day or for a few days in a row, with a long lull afterward.

You’ll see that some tend to post in the evening, while others seem to post on the weekends, with yet another group that seems to post anytime they are awake.

Create a schedule of when you will post content and review it often to see how well it is working for you and tweak as necessary.

You may find that you aren’t posting enough or perhaps that you need to be posting at a different time of the day or even day of the week.

The best way to find out is to create some type of posting schedule, just as you do with the other things in your life.

Work it in and put it down on your calendar to see when you can carve out some time to get it done.

CoSchedule posted an interesting infographic on their site outlining the results of an editorial calendar they followed reposting one piece of content.  

Here are the results:

Courtesy of: CoSchedule

If you are adding that up, then that’s a total of 9 Tweets in a one-week period that resulted in 5,987 impressions and 65 link clicks.

When you think about it, this is a pretty good return on simply reposting content over the course of a week.  

Not too bad for a few computer mouse (or smartphone) clicks.

Where Do You Post?

Everywhere.

Well, it’s social media, which means you SHOULD be social.

All joking aside though, you want to post wherever your audience is hanging out.

Are they on Facebook a lot?  

Is this where your network hangs out the most?  

Well, then you DEFINITELY need to post there.

Does your audience follow you on Instagram?  

Are you unveiling a new product soon and want to give them a sneak peek of what’s coming up?  

Then you WANT to post there.

Do they follow your tweets and have a tendency to re-tweet and share?  

This is definitely a place where you need to post.

You can realistically post on ALL of your social media accounts, but keep in mind if you aren’t segmenting your audience and network, then perhaps your grandma may not want to learn about the latest car speakers that are coming out.

Which brings up a good point.

You may want to separate your personal social media accounts from your business or organization accounts. Click To Tweet

Why?

Well, again depending on your niche and audience, your personal network of family and friends may not be all that interested in what you have to offer or may say something to you that you just may not want to hear.

We aren’t saying this is going to happen, just saying that it’s a possibility.

When Do You Post?

This really goes back to the scheduling that we spoke of earlier.

When do you post?  

Well, there are two times that you should:

1. When you first publish and put up the content
2. When it’s appropriate

Seems simple doesn’t it?

That’s because it is.

When you are all done with a fresh, juicy, and entertaining piece of content, don’t put it off!  

Let your audience know about it and post it to your Social Media network.

You should also post when it’s appropriate.

What does that look like?

Well, reposting the opinion piece about the potato festival that happened in 2010 may not make much sense to randomly post.

However, if that time of the year is coming up again for the annual potato festival then it would.

As you can see from the example earlier, multiple postings in the days following the original posting didn’t seem to hurt at all.

This goes back to scheduling, tracking, testing, and tweaking.

See what is working and what isn’t.

Create a schedule of days and times to post to your Social Media sites for business and be sure to stay on schedule.

What Do You Post?

This is really up to you.

You need to post whatever makes sense for your audience.

Is your niche and audience in the personal development area, where people may want to learn about getting rid of limiting beliefs and learning techniques to get motivated?

Well, then posting reviews about the latest humidifiers from Amazon really won’t resonate, now will it?

Need some ideas?  Here are two:

• Educational – If there are some things that your audience may want to learn about, or if your niche is one where you solve a problem for someone such as weight loss, then educational content will really speak to them.  Taking the weight loss niche, for example, you could post content on the latest diets and exercise that help people to lose weight quickly.
• Entertaining – Everyone needs a good laugh now and again.  If your content can evoke emotions such as laughter and joy and can entertain your audience, then you have a winner that you should be sharing.

Just really take a look at whom you are speaking to on social media and give them what they ask for.Click To Tweet

Again, it isn’t rocket science.

You can also bet that if they DON’T want to see it, that they’ll let you know about it.

Tools to Use

Here is a list of my favorite tools to start promoting your content quickly

1. Buffer– Start with this social media posting tool.  Add your accounts and then use the content scheduler to post once to twice a week for the next month.
2. Bulk.ly – Automate the process of recycling your most popular posts and keep your Buffer queue 100% full. 
3. Quuu.co – Want massive sharing of your content on autopilot? Sign up for Quuu.co and use the promote content feature.
4. Viral Content Buzz – Share some content and then have influencers share your content for free.  Doesn't get easier than this.
5. Venngage – Create infographics as well as other social media graphics for free.

Use these five tools and you will get more shares than you have previously gotten before.

Final Thoughts

As mentioned earlier, there aren’t any hard and fast rules when it comes to Social Media Promotion.

It really just comes down to creating a schedule and having a feel on the pulse of your audience.

You know what they want to see, you know the vehicles in which to deliver it and you know how often they would want to see it.

When you have been in a niche for any amount of time, it’s just something that you’ll pick up.

All you need to do is put yourself in their shoes, and you’ll likely find all of the answers that you have been searching for.

Have some great ways you use Social Media to promote your business? Let us know in the comments below and don't forget to share with your social media connections.