Social Media Marketing is a crucial piece of the inbound marketing methodology. It is, in fact, the only element that is used across all 4 stages, being attract, convert, close and delight. Yes, if used correctly social media can definitely help you achieve your inbound marketing goals. But so often we hear the same objection. "I just don't have the time for social media."
We understand. You're busy. Most marketers are. Juggling a dozen tasks, projects and campaigns at any given time. All of which are more important than social media!
But consider this:
- Overall, about 42% of the world’s population has a social media account. That’s 3.2 BILLION users across the globe.
- Adults aged 18 to 34 are most likely to follow a brand on social media, with 95% of them doing so.
- 71% of small-to-mid sized businesses use social media to market themselves, and of those who do so, 52% post at least daily.
- Marketers spent over $89 billion on social media advertising and marketing in 2019.
- Facebook users click on an average of 11 ads each month.
- A whopping 83% of Twitter users who sent a tweet to a company – and received a response – felt better about the company and were more likely to do business with them.
- 200 million people visit at least one Instagram business profile every day, and 130 million people engage with shopping posts every month.
- In fact, 80% of social media B2B leads, and 46% of all social media traffic to company websites come from LinkedIn.
So don't get left behind! I'm here to offer my 29-minute a day checklist to managing your social media without cutting too much into your otherwise jam packed workday. Please do bear in mind that the times provided are based on the assumption that you have a social media monitoring tool (such as HubSpot Social Inbox), have a small to medium community not posting 1,000+ messages a day to you and you have a minimum typing speed of 45 - 50 wpm. :-)
5 Minutes: Respond To Exchanges
When people interact with you or your messages they expect a response. And the more timely the better. If you aren’t able to respond in real-time, make sure that this is the first thing you do. Take 5 minutes to:
- Reply to messages
- Favourite or like mentions
- Follow back genuine new followers
- Thank people who have shared your content
If you have a lot of contacts to respond to, consider prioritising them by customers and leads, before tackling people not in your marketing funnel yet. HubSpot’s Social Inbox makes this easy as pie with colour-coded contacts matched back to your integrated CRM. You'll probably have a bit more of a challenge getting this right within the allotted time without it.
1 Minute: Evaluate Content Performance
In order to foster engagement you need to understand what content is most valuable to your audience. Your buyer persona research will help you determine what their most pressing needs, interests or challenges are, but you should also review your social analytics to identify your best performing posts.
Look at your interactions in terms of clicks received, retweets, favourites, likes and shares. This gives a good indication of what content is appealing to your audience. Use this information to guide your future posts.
You may also consider re-sharing content that is receiving more than average interaction, but there are a few guidelines to do this effectively:
1. Change up the copy
This will ensure that your audience's timelines aren’t filled with the same posts over and over again. There is nothing that feels more impersonal and automated on social media than regurgitated posts.
2. Space out your posts
While you may get away with sharing the same content on Twitter more frequently, your Facebook followers may quickly identify older content. This is due to the nature of the different timelines and the paces at which they move. Create a re-sharing calendar that takes the characteristics of each platform into consideration and schedule your re-shares accordingly.
8 Minutes: Eavesdrop on Relevant Conversations
To effectively leverage the power of social media, you need to actively pursue opportunities for engagement and monitor your social media. This can be achieved by listening in on the conversations happening and responding where appropriate.
This aspect is a little different than responding to direct messages or tweets where you are specifically mentioned. In order to eavesdrop on the ‘socialsphere’ you’ll need to set up alerts for:
- Positive mentions of your company, product or brand name, blog and domain so you can thank them for the compliment or praise
- Negative mentions of your company, product or brand name so you can resolve issues – immediately
- Both positive and negative mentions of your competitors in order to see where they are winning brownie points and allow you to jump in on an opportunity to offer an alternative when they have disappointed someone
- Mentions of important industry keywords to see if there is information you can provide to answer general questions
In HubSpot Social Inbox, you can do this by setting up streams to deliver a personalised timeline with tweets matching your criteria. This saves me heaps of ‘detective work’ and delivers the conversations I need to hear straight to my inbox.
10 Minutes: Schedule Your Messages
Use what you know about your audience’s preference in terms of favourable and interesting content and spend 10 minutes setting up your posts for the day.
The number of posts you share will depend on your own calendar and how often you have chosen to post per platform. The times you schedule to post should also be directed by your analytics and understanding when your audience is most active and engaged on each platform.
When planning your social media updates remember to:
- Share both your own content as well as the content of others (always reference curated content accordingly by acknowledging the creator)
- Post diverse content types to keep things fresh and interesting
- Include appropriate hashtags to surface your content in searches (2 at most thought, you don’t want to overdo it)
- Optimise posts per platform (longer copy for Facebook, short copy for Twitter, appealing imagery for Google+, etc.)
- Keep an eye on trending topics and leverage those when applicable
Before you shut down for the day, use your last 5 minutes to check in on any messages that need responding to. By doing this you’re covering your response time across the entire day fairly equally and will find favour with your engaged community for responding consistently.
