Finding Social Media Inspiration
Finding Social Media inspiration can be a daunting task at the best of times. How many times have you sat in front of your laptop waiting for the muse to strike and conscious of all the other tasks on your to-do list?
By planning ahead and making the most of all the assets and people within your business, you can make this process a whole lot easier. Also, you can streamline your work, make more of the opportunities that present themselves and be more effective with your social media strategy.
We are going to share a few tactics to get those creative juices flowing and your social media attracting the right people.
First stop, if you are responsible for your company’s social media, is to talk to the boss. Make sure you are on their radar and do what you can to let them know the importance of having a good social media strategy. Doing this will help you feel supported and hopefully mean that you are given enough time to do a good job, if social media is only one of your duties. Also, the boss or one of their reports will hold the purse strings and might be able to give you a bit of budget to create content, invest in some useful tools to make your posts better or boost your efforts using paid advertising.
On the subject of leaders, they can be one of the most important resources for your social media. Have a look around your company and see who would be able to help you create some interesting content. You could do a series of short video interviews with the top team, post a brief bio with a photo or ask them to write a thought-leadership blog that you could share on social media. Scheduling quick catch-ups with a few senior people will also bring out what is important for their departments or areas of interest, which can be great inspiration for topics to share online.
LinkedIn is the perfect place for this type of content, and Twitter can also be a good platform to share industry knowledge. Many companies also put their marketing or social media people in charge of the LinkedIn profiles of their senior team, so they can achieve a consistent look and feel, optimise them for relevant keywords and add high-quality photos. Taking this further, you can also post on their behalf to make sure there is a regular flow of information, even when they are busy in their main role or away. Clearly a good level of trust needs to be built up to work this way, but it can be very effective.
Often a senior person will have a larger and more powerful network compared to the followers of a company page on LinkedIn, so sharing a post from them will get a much bigger and more engaged reach. Just remember to try to adopt an appropriate tone of voice and style when speaking for the boss!
Planning is key for social media, as it is for any kind of marketing or communication. If you take an ad hoc approach to your social media posting, you will miss out on a lot of opportunities and maximise that time staring at your screen blankly. A simple editorial calendar for social media is vital to plan out posts ahead of time. Get all the main events that your company (and company leaders) are attending into the social media calendar. Tap in all the major events in your industry, for example conferences, product launches, exhibitions and awards. Make sure you are aware of relevant annual events. These will vary from company to company – a florist will want to prepare for Valentine’s and Mother’s Day, but won’t find Halloween as interesting as a costume hire shop.
Instantly, by spending a bit of time on this, you will have a series of events mapped out across the year, that you can shout about on social media. Also, by having them in the diary, it means you have plenty of time to prepare. For important events, you might start to trail them on your social media account weeks in advance. You can then post about them on the day and perhaps write a blog or summary post to review the event afterwards. So rather than one or two rushed posts on the day itself, you could have a whole range of posts over a period of time. These are likely to be better quality and you might have been able to prepare photo, video or written content to go with what you are posting. Quality posts get more engagement and reach, so you will have got as much as you can out of your events, if you approach them this way. You will also feel less stressed and more in control.
A lot of social media inspiration can be about opportunism. Grabbing that great photo or quickly recording an important moment on video. Jotting down a great idea or reacting to someone else’s post in real time. Getting yourself into the right frame of mind can help to spot these chances.
However, the rest of your colleagues will not be thinking about the company social media. They will be going about their normal business and worrying about achieving their own goals and pleasing their own bosses. Make sure social media gets on the agenda at your firm. Mention it in the weekly meeting, have an update regularly about what you are achieving. Hi-light posts that went a little bit viral or ones that brought good traffic to your Website. Share some cool insight, feature or analysis. The more you can get other people recognising the importance of social media, the greater chance that they will help you with content, updates or even resources. Also, you will benefit careers-wise from greater exposure for your good work.
Your colleagues are also potentially your audience and your cheerleaders. If you have successfully raised the profile of social media, then go to the next step and encourage people to like and share the company posts. Never tell people to do it, but just give them a gentle push. The more engagement your posts get – ie likes, comments and shares – the further they will travel on the networks and the greater reach you will get. Also, if you have people at work who are keen photographers, artists, epic designers, like making videos, are good writers or just do cool things in their leisure time, then they could all contribute to the company social media presence. Get them on board, they might love seeing their work shared across the Internet.
Don’t forget your customers. Social media should not be a broadcast medium, it should be a conversation. Your customers have plenty to say about your products or services. You can tap into this in a few different ways. Set up your brand name or key product names as a Google Alert, so you get regular updates from Google on where and how you are popping up on search. Set up a saved search on Twitter, so you can see what people are saying about you in real-time. Keep on eye on all your notifications. Mentions, retweets, comments, shares and all that interaction will tell you how you are doing and what people, your customers, think about your efforts. Always be responsive and remember you are representing your company. Be a problem solver and a positive force and seek advice when you are unsure. Be polite. Bigger companies can invest in some social media listening tools to mechanise this process.
The customer service department can be a vital resource for social media managers. From them, you can understand the pain points of customers and perhaps create content that addresses them. You might even prevent some customer service queries by posting an explainer video or update that fixes someone’s issue. What you will find out is that by helping customers by responding to their common issues, you can build up trust and add real value. Always wise to have a contact in customer services to whom you can pass any thorny or complex issues, when they come in via Twitter or Facebook Messenger for example. Don’t try to help people if you don’t really know the answer.
Finally, share the love by interacting with customers and partners. Your partners or suppliers can be a fantastic source of content. Nike has far cooler imagery, sports stars, music and videos than any shoe store will be able to create, so make sure you get the most out of social media that belongs to partner companies. They will often be more than happy to share photos, videos and product details with you, if you get in contact with their marketing, social or channel team. You can always re-share appropriate posts from their accounts at any time. It is a dull task, but make sure you are following all your clients, suppliers and partners, so you can do this easily. Mentioning partner businesses is also a fantastic way to get extra reach, as they will often re-share your post giving you access to their (often) bigger audience.
We hope you have taken a few tips to spark some ideas and fire up that social media inspiration. Using these strategies you can keep it fun and efficient and get support from those around you at work.
