I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen posts recently, boasting about improving a clients reach and performance after just one conversation or post. Whilst that creates an initial buzz for the client and a pat on the back for the manager, the real impact of social media on a business’ performance will be judged over time. Success, however it’s packaged, doesn’t actually happen overnight (even ‘overnight success’), it’s actually the result of lots of hard work and can take time. To quote Steve Jobs – “Overnight success stories take a long time”.
When looking at your social media strategy for your business, you will need ensure that it’s aligned with your long-term goals and of course targets your intended market! It can take from 6-12 months to achieve sustainable success, but this is dependent on a number of factors.
Consistency is KEY!
Consistency builds trust, provides a show of authenticity and ensures that content is seen by lots of people over time. If you’re posting to social media, ensure that you will be able to maintain the standard and frequency of posting from the beginning. If you are a small business, it might be the case of building up frequency over time, starting with once a week, maintaining this and then gradually increasing the frequency as you become more confident (but ensure that the content is relevant to your audience and overall goals!)
Creating quality branded content
Carefully curate your content to ensure that it’s not only engaging to the audience, but also reflects your brand identity… right through from the imagery to the tone of voice. Don’t just hit Canva and use every template that you come across or jump on a viral reel trend! Consider every post on social media like building blocks towards reaching your long term goals!
Branding should be at the heart of everything that you do, it’s not just about adding a logo and colour palette to a design, it’s about so much more. It’s how your audience identifies you, connects with you and your opportunity to create a lasting impression. It involves so many components right through from your imagery and typography to your tone of voice and messaging.
All of these elements together will help to generate a stronger connection to your audience, keep them invested, build trust and over a period of time, increase organic reach and engagement!
Measuring your success
So how do you measure your success? Of course look at the ‘insights’ on your social media channels, but don’t just do this in isolation and never use “likes” as a definitive evaluation of success. There are more silent scrollers out there than you think, who will will look, but not ‘follow’ or ‘like’, and most importantly will purchase. On the other end of the scale, there are also those who will ‘follow’, ‘like’ and never purchase!
Looking at how posts have performed in terms of overall reach and reviewing the demographic of the audience will help when generating future content, in terms of what works and what doesn’t. Don’t solely focus on this though and always keep the bigger picture in mind. Look at the performance of all your digital marketing channels including social media, e-newsletter and website. e.g. If you are signposting to your website from your social media posts, look at how many visitors are coming to you directly from your social channels when reviewing the website data! Also, use your enquiry forms or online checkouts as an opportunity to gather this information, add in questions like “how did you find us” or “where did you hear about us from” which you can add into your data. Ultimately, what you need to see, is an impact on your business performance e.g. sales!
In summary – stick to your strategy, consistently post quality branded and relevant content, remain objective when looking at insights … and always keep your long term business goals as the finish line!
Helen Humphreys Business Solutions 