Here’s your Social Media Checklist

With your `To Do list` overflowing here is my handy Social Media Checklist that you can use regularly to help you minimise your time spent on using your various platforms.image of a businessman adding a tick to a social media checklist

Just using these tried and tested methods will help you gain the most out of your Social Media strategy with minimal effort and time spent on it.

Social Media Daily Tasks

  • Facebook – post at least once a day to your business page
  • Twitter – Aim to Tweet or Retweet at least 10-12 times per day
  • LinkedIn – post at least once a day on your personal profile or company page
  • Google Plus – post at least once a day on your personal profile and/or business page
  • Check – for any comments or direct messages from followers on all platforms

Social Media Etiquette

  • Try to promote others more than you promote yourself
  • Forget the sales pitch, it is more about Tell, Tell, Tell than Sell, Sell, Sell. Throw the occasional sales update in on a ration of approximately 1:10, so that`s 9 helpful, interesting, educational posts or updates and just 1 sales orientated post.
  • Listen carefully to conversations on Social Media, if it is relevant respond and answer to any enquiries or questions quickly and share useful and interesting information
  • If anyone Shares your updates or information be sure to thank them

Social Media Monitoring

  • There are monitoring tools out there that you can use for free, use them to help you filter through the weight of content out there on Social Media
  • Look at all the data and analytics available to you and monitor the information to help give you a better picture of your target audience, posts, updates and timing
  • Monitor trends, track them and watch for upcoming trends

Using Social Media

  • Treat all of your Social Media as a conversation, listen in and when the opportunity arises join in the conversation, adding your weight as expert or authorative figure within your industry
  • LinkedIn offers the perfect platform to gain recommendations to use as testimonials elsewhere, ask your clients for recommendations on LinkedIn and then ask for permission to use elsewhere
  • Join Groups on Facebook and Communities on Google+, or create your own. This is a great way of joining in discussions or creating them to help put yourself across as an authority

Social Media Listening

  • Use the tools available to search for terms, hashtags, conversations and phrases that are relevant to your industry
  • Monitor and listen to your competitors, see what they are talking about and what type of content is getting engagement on their platforms
  • Use #hashtags to create conversations or listen in on industry related conversations

Social Media Engagement

  • Always be helpful to your followers and community, be polite and respond as soon as you cana
  • Do not just share your content but share others that you feel will be interesting and relevant to your followers
  • Do not dive head first in to Social Media, listen first, look for the right time and opportunity to join in the conversation and only when you can offer something of value join in

Blogging

  • Find and read other influential bloggers within your industry and comment on their blog posts
  • Write your own regular blog posts, offer helpful and interesting content to help build a community
  • Always add a CTA (Call To Action) at the end of your blog, this can be to contact you, follow you, etc
  • Make sure there are Social Media `Share` buttons either at the beginning or end of each blog post, if you`re writing good content you want and need readers to share it and spread the word
  • Engage with comments on your blog

Social Media Training

  • Have more than one person within the company trained up in case of long-term sickness, holidays, maternity leave, etc
  • Make sure you have some form of professional training or consultancy to ensure what you are doing on a daily basis is correct. Correct usage of Social Media can have major benefits, incorrect usage can have catastrophic and long-lasting damage to your business
  • Make sure you have a strong, water-tight Social Media policy in force to help you control and deal with your company`s objectives, goals and guidelines

I hope you found this useful

All the best
Martin