5 Ways to Know if Your Social Media Presence is Working
If you’re running various channels on social media, there may be times when you are plagued with self-doubt or guilt about this particular investment of time and money.
- Is this worth my time?
- Is this just for vanity?
- Am I making a return on my investment?
When it comes to social media, without input you can’t expect output. There are some fundamental basic rules you need to follow when you run social media. If you’re not on top of these, that may be the reason for lack of success.
Are you doing social media “properly?”
This means different types of content that are appropriate for the channel, well-designed, and well-written. Each piece of shared content or created content should in some way be communicating your business’s key messages. It also means you are engaging with others and aware of what others in your industry are posting and saying.
It’s not a short-term quick fix
It’s important to continuously improve by keeping one eye on what posts get more engagement and another eye on others who are creating great content. Those new to social media may need to have several months of good continuous activity before they see a reward.
Social in sales and relationship building
When you’re aware of who your potential clients/prospects/partners/stakeholders are, you can augment your interactions with them by using social media for added touchpoints (such as following them on Instagram and Twitter, connecting with them on LinkedIn, clicking “like” on their posts, mentioning them in your tweets and Instagram stories, interviewing them for your blog, etc.). All of this is up for grabs if you have a good handle social media engagement.
Is your social media presence working for your business?
There are certain signs you can watch out for which will play a big part in your decision. Most people still have to engage in continuous activity and relationship building before they can see how well their social media presence is working. It’s easy to underestimate the importance of building this strong foundation to see real results.
If you’ve considered the above and you feel you have a good baseline, then these are the things to watch out for regarding the worth of time and investment.
- You are getting positive feedback: When you post something on social media and you get people commenting, retweeting and liking your posts, then it’s a sign – people are looking and reading. If this is happening already, it can happen more when you continue to be engaged socially.
- You see the same person has repeatedly engaged and interacted: They are either a friend or they are a business contact admiring and supporting you in some way. It’s up to you to see if you want to harness that support by engaging more with them and encouraging their advocacy. In business, it takes up to 7 touchpoints for a person to think of you in a positive light, to refer business to you, or to choose to work with you. Even simple interactions like a person reading a blog post you have written, sharing your Facebook post, or double tapping your Instagram photo, shows that they are interested.
- When you meet up with people, they seem to know things: I find that even though I may not have noticed someone commenting or liking my posts, they have this uncanny awareness of what I have been up to in business. This is a sign that they were quietly watching when I posted about that team trip, the latest launch, or the new hire. I find it interesting and encouraging!
- People are inquiring on your website: The holy grail – once someone is inquiring, you have a direct line of contact and it’s up to you to harness it. It could be that your social media had a part to play in driving traffic. It may be simply because you have a great website with great SEO. They may have assessed your Twitter feed, your LinkedIn profile and your Facebook reviews. Nowadays, your entire online presence forms a picture to show your business personality, experience, and insight – you can certainly ask the people inquiring what aspect led them to be interested.
- Your audience is marketing your business for you: If you publish posts on social media and you get people sharing your posts without even asking them to, that’s amazing! How many extra pairs of eyes are you now getting? This tertiary awareness is really what’s made social media grow at such an unprecedented rate. And there are always ways to increase social media sharing!
Social media has changed significantly for business over the years. With more and more people joining in, the stakes are higher.
Facebook has changed their algorithms to make it more necessary for you to pay to be seen, but in overall marketing spend terms, it’s still far more affordable cost per “eyeball” than other marketing types. Instagram stories and IGTV have opened up a whole new world of possibilities to get creative and invite engagement.
My recommendation is to take encouragement from the 5 signs above, assess whether you really are doing social media as well, and continuously learn, measure and improve.
