Ready to tell the legions of social media users about your organization? Using sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest are another way to touch potential clients. But, before you start posting, it is essential to craft a social media marketing plan. Your institution or business needs to set priorities and make sure everyone on your team is on the same page. A few helpful hints:
- Establish your organization’s objective with social media.
- Determine which social media channels are right for you.
- Designate who is in charge of the accounts and the postings.
- Decide the frequency for posting to various sites.
Once you’ve set some parameters, you need to decide on the type of content. On a basic level, you can offer information about your organization and your industry. News people can use. Or, you can take it a step further, and try to draw people in deeper. To do that, you’ll need a hook. Here are a few ideas:
- Offer connections to a representative or a customer service provider.
- Provide opportunities to talk to an existing customer, either direct contact or testimonials. (For higher education, this could be a contact with a student or professor)
- Create a competition or promotion. Ask users to submit their own content or respond to your content.
Once you’ve started making your social media connections, you can track your progress. Facebook offers administrators free access to Page Insights data, as does LinkedIn. Google Analytics can show how users are coming to your main website (i.e., if they are arriving by way of social media sites.).