Month: June 2014

How to find an assistant for your Social Media

Eva Mah

If you’ve decided that outsourcing is the way to go for your social media, then you’ll need to find an assistant.  There are several great places to look.

*  If you already have employees – hire from within.  They already know your business, and your expectations, they’d be a great place to start.

*  If you have a VA already – you could add social media to their list.  lol.. unless you have them overwhelmed with work already, of course.  Don’t want to lose your right hand person!

*  Ask people that are already using an assistant who they might recommend.

*  Try online job sites, like Odesk.com

Remember – you can hire someone to do research – you write the posts yourself and have them post them, or schedule them.

Protect your privacy when outsourcing –

You don’t have to give this new stranger access to your social media accounts – there are several online resources that you can assign a team member to, and give them limited access.  Buffer and Hootsuite will let you do that.

Outsourcing your Social Media

Eva Mah

It’s imperative that your social media be on all the time.  Communication is global now – you need to be able to reached 24/7/365.  Whether it’s to offer support for your product or website, or just interact with people and build your brand – you can’t possibly be there every minute.

Should you outsource?

Sure, you can automate – but people figure that out in a hurry when they have a question, and you don’t answer.

Depending on your business, however, you can easily outsource your social media.

*  For Internet Marketers or Bloggers – if your blog or business is about you, then you don’t want to hire someone else to “be” you.

You could get a VA (Virtual Assistant) and let people know you *have* an assistant.  Make them part of your brand.  If they have a similar personality – your customers will gladly welcome them.

You can have your VA search for content that you might want to share in social media.  You can check it over before posts are scheduled.  Then your VA can check in and monitor replies, and let you know when you’re needed to respond to something.

*  For Larger Companies – Many companies have a team that’s dedicated to social media for the company.  Make sure the team is posting like human, though.  Highlight the team in posts, and include pictures.  Smiling pictures!

Remember, if your personality is a big part of your business, you’ll still need to log in every once in a while to respond.  Even if your assistant is doing most of the work, it’s still YOUR business!

Tracking for Social Media Success

Eva Mah

You need to know which posts, and what time of day works best for you and your business.  Tracking and analytics are musts for your marketing.  Some social networks have tracking built in, but for others, you’ll need to use other tracking services.

Online Social Media Tracking

If you’re already signed up to services that automate your social media, you might already have analytics.  Buffer and HootSuite are two that give you daily reports.

The Reports will help you to:

  • See what time of day works best for your posts
  • See what niches people are interested in
  • See the types of posts that get the best response – like questions, p olls, images.
  • See who’s sharing, retweeting, and actually going to your website.

How can  you tell which of your posts are successful?

There are many services that track for you – one is a URL shortening service calle Bitly – https://bitly.com

When you share a link – use the Bitly service to shorten it, then use the Bitly link in your post.  This will give you a report showing how many people clicked on that link.  Use different links for different places that you post – so you can see which network is bringing you the best results.

Facebook has stats built in that will help you know what posts are being seen, and how many people are engaging with those posts.

You can also keep a spreadsheet – noting number of comments, shares and likes for each type of post – it could be time consuming – but tracking now will save you tons of money in the long run!

Stand Out From Your Competition Using Facebook

Eva Mah

Facebook can become your best marketing platform, if done correctly.  However, your competition is also on Facebook, but they may not know the best practices of marketing with Facebook.  Hopefully this article will show you how to do it better than they do!

Set up Contests on your Facebook page.  Then make it very obvious.  Put it in its own tab – very close to the left.  Change your cover photo to include something about the contest.

Use lots of pictures.  They can be of your product, or inspirational or funny pictures.  (yes yes, more CATS)  Your customers will share these photos with their Facebook friends, and that will further your reach, leading more people to you.

Put fun in your business!  That’s what Facebook is all about – having fun.  You need to incorporate fun into your posts, tactics and stragegies.  The more fun you have with your customers, the more loyal they’ll becomes.

Your followers might check Facebook while they’re working, but they’ll be more apt to interact when they’re at home.  Post during non-work hours to get more people involved.

Post positive messages and memorable things on your news feed.  It might be the thing that brightens someone’s day!  Then you’ll really have a loyal follower!

What other strategies and tactics can you come up with?