Social Media Resolutions For Your Business.
I’m always a little averse to resolutions — mostly because I never follow them. I start them, but I never really get to the end goal. I’m a really good starter.
I started thinking about resolutions in a better way (and I feel like it might stick). Instead of thinking of the things that are lacking, why not build on what I do best? It’s the way I work anyway, and looking at what’s working tends to yield the best results since you’re already improving what works and challenging yourself to do better.
So, here are all of the things I’m challenging myself to do better.
Listen more
Listening is one of the most critical elements of running social channels for an organization. When you listen, you find out a important information. You find out where your customers hang out, what they like and most importantly what they are thinking.
When you listen, you catch on and stay relevant.
Something I like to do daily is to use our monitoring program to listen for a few things. People who talk about giving in my city, people who ask about where they can volunteer in my city, and people who are interested in non-profits and giving back. I follow them, look at their conversations and sometimes I chime in when it seems appropriate. Sometimes this may lead people to take an action, but other times it leads to a follow, or a subcription to our mailing list, which gives us another opportunity to talk to someone who may want to get involved.
Measure WAY MORE
“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.” — Alan Lakein
I beg you, please measure and track. Don’t start doing any more work until you plan ahead and decide what measurements are worth it. Planning your measurements means that you can determine success, but that you can also adapt when things aren’t going how you anticipated.
For me, some of the measurements I’m quantifying are how many people sign up for our newsletters, how many people come to our website via social media and take an action (donating, volunteering sharing), and how many people become donors because they find out about us through social media or digital advertising. Those are all key performance indicators for me. I also measure vanity things like followers, likes and sentiment too. Other practitioners may say it doesn’t matter (and it doesn’t as a major metric), but it does give me an idea of the conversion percentage through social media, and when I see that I publish something that a large group may not like, I can change up what I’m doing and find an alternative to getting my audience to take an action. That is valuable to me.
Don’t be afraid to reach out
The best part of social media is that you have access to a world full of people that you didn’t have access to before. Don’t be afraid to talk to them. Are they tweeting about something you’re interested in? Ask to collaborate. Are they sharing content you appreciate? Let them know. Build a connection that feels authentic and deep.
Stop letting people bother you
Okay. this one is a little more personal than anything, but it did affect my business life too. 2015 has been the year of controversy. We’ve seen things in our daily lives that have pushed us to raise questions and speak up. On the Facebook page I run, a few people made some awful comments on a status we posted that promoted equality and tolerance. Personally, it pissed me off. Professionally, it pissed me off. People are allowed to say what they want, but as a business, you are also allowed to shut it down when it doesn’t make a valuable contribution to the conversation you’re putting forth. Bashing others is not okay.
Personally, I can’t justify blocking my friends because I love them, but I most definitely can stop following their posts when it doesn’t align with my values.
Build an army
Our army came together full force this year. Between helping our hashtag trend on Thanksgiving morning, making our New York Times one of the top 10 most read on the first two days of its publishing, and helping us get millions of impressions this year, our “Social Media Ninjas,” as we like to call them, help us get the word out. They share the work through their eyes and their words. It makes all the difference in the stories we tell.
It’s not me, it’s you:
Quit making it all about you. Talk about your partners, you collaborators, and the people who contribute to your success. You can talk about you on occasion, but when you make it about other people, it goes from cheerleading, to showing impact and graciousness very quickly.
When I first started, we shared nothing but stories about ourselves, but no one cared. When we started sharing stories about the people who were living in the neighborhoods we served or were working on the ground in communities, the response was different. We saw an increase in engagement, but we also saw more empathy — more people sharing their own stories, and understanding the stories we were telling.
Maybe you adopt some of these things, and maybe you adopt none of them. Whatever you do, take the good things you’re working on and make them even better.
What are some things you’ll implement in your Social Media Strategy for the new year?