You post, tweet, and pin.You comment, share, like, and plus one.You create, curate, and cultivate interesting content.Yet, it feels like your efforts are in vain.You find your momentum dwindling, and your energy is bordering on lifeless.Sound familiar?If so, you're not alone.The tips below will help you breathe new life into your social media strategy.Let's go find your groove, baby!
7 Creates Ways to Breathe New Life Into Your Social Media Strategy
1. Tackle Social Media “On Purpose”
Nothing can steal your mojo quicker than leading a haphazard online life.Think about how you are managing your time spent on social media. Do you randomly post, connect, and converse?Do you find yourself stumbling around, arbitrarily liking and retweeting, or are you strategic in your actions?Social media is an incredible tool when used effectively. It can put you in the right place at the right time. It can also connect you to the exact right people. But none of this can happen if you haven’t implemented a plan.A social media strategy allows you to live your online life “on purpose.” It gives you focus, motivation and goals to work towards.
2. Know Your Style, Limitations, and Boundaries
Social media offers extraordinary advantages to those willing to embrace the opportunity. It also challenges those who haven’t taken the time to understand their communication style, conversation limitations, and overall boundaries.It might surprise those connected to me online, but I have always been a very private person by nature. Sharing what transpires in my day-to-day life has never been something that comes easy.It could be that I grew up with a father who had a prominent career and knew that any verbal vomit would severely impact his standing. Or it might have been my initial career in radio that set me up for social media.Either way, I have a deeply embedded internal monitoring system that screams, “Don’t do it,” long before the words escape my lips or leave my fingers to hit the computer keys.Knowing who you are and what you’re willing to talk about is critical to your online success. It allows you to engage in meaningful conversations and steer clear of those that might do harm to your business or personal brand.The bottom line? Be clear in what you are and are not willing to discuss. Then do a gut a check before posting or engaging in any conversation.Will it elevate and position you in a positive light or seek to destroy all that you’ve worked so hard to build?
3. Identify What Drives and Inspires You
Social media doesn’t sleep. It’s running 24/7 and if you don’t speak to what your passionate about, what inspires and excites you, it will quickly burn you out.What do you love most about your business or niche? How do you help people and who is it that you’re passionate about serving?If you don’t place your focus on something you eat, sleep and breathe, you will easily tire talking about it.
4. Choose Your Outlet
Knowing who your target market is and where to find them is an important step to social media success.Fight the urge to be everywhere all at once. If you’re just getting started or feeling overwhelmed, stop juggling an endless amount of social networks.Give yourself permission to take a step back, analyze what’s working and what’s not, and which social channel is your best use of time.When it comes to social media, success comes from baby steps. Small, sustainable steps that work you towards a bigger goal. Taking on more than you can maintain will leave you feeling defeated before you find momentum.
Tools to Help You Determine Where Your Time is Best Spent:
Moz Analytics – This is one of my top go-to tools. While there is a paid version, they offer quite a few free tools, including social analytics.Google Analytics – Use Google Analytics to monitor your social media activity, conversions and traffic.Facebook Insights – Insights is Facebook's free analytics tool that gives you a snapshot of the activity happening on your page and around each of your posts.Circlecount analyzes Google+ activity and allows you to view everything from your follower growth to interactions including comments and reshares.While it is tempting to every social networking site, it’s to your advantage toDetermine where you’re getting the most exposure. Focus your time and energy on that social network, master it and then move on to the next one.
5. Find Your Rhythm and Voice
Finding your voice online can be the ultimate challenge. While it won’t evolve overnight, there are a few ways to discover the cadence and tone that best represent who you are.Steven Covey describes the importance of finding your voice this way,
“One word expresses the pathway to greatness: voice. Those on this path find their voice and inspire others to find theirs. The rest never do.”
Ask yourself a few questions to begin to define your own:
- What lights you up?
- What could you talk about for days on end?
- Are you an introvert or extrovert?
- Do you like to share stories or tell jokes?
- What are you and expert at?
- What skills do you have that need to be shared with others?
Need more inspiration? Give these ten questions a try!
6. Educate, Entertain and Entice
As someone who wants to know the why and the how before I can get to the what, social media forces us to take a step back. It requires that we attack it from a fresh perspective.It demands that we entice through the ‘what’ and then engage and grow through the how-to. What do I mean by this?Take those daily client questions, old marketing materials, and follow-up emails and turn them into enticing, educational, and entertaining social media posts that answer the “what” behind your business.Then share tips that explain how-to. This can be anything from solving a client concern to a story on how your product helped someone overcome a challenge.
7. Work It, Tweak It, Explode It
Social media is fluid. It’s an ever-evolving medium, requiring that you become a student of mastering it both today and in years to come.Stay up-to-date on the latest changes and in touch with how those changes impact your reach, engagement, sales, traffic, and conversions.If your analytics tell you something isn’t working, don’t be afraid to tweak it.One small change can lead to explosive results.
Final Thoughts…
Above all else, have fun! Social media should not be a drain or a strain on your business.Find your groove, get your mojo back and enjoy your time spent online!
About Rebekah Radice
Rebekah Radice, co-founder of BRIL.LA, has traded narcissism for purpose. When not driving growth, you'll find her tricking family into thinking she's Emeril Lagasse - likely covered in marinara. The spotlight was fun, but impact is better. These days she's using 20+ years of brand brilliance for good.