Limited Time & Budget? No Problem! Here's How to Get Awesome with Social Anyway, Part 2
In our last post we introduced how start ups can launch a killer social plan even with limited time and budget. We noted how important it is to understand your persona – and talked a little bit about what to do with LinkedIn.
Today we’ll continue our discussion with more on the 'where,' the 'what,' and 'how' to leverage one small effort into multiple distribution opportunities.
Where Oh Where Can They Be?
It’s important to track the networks where your persona is, beyond LinkedIn. For example, some may dismiss Facebook as an effective B2B lead gen platform. However, some SaaS companies have proven this to be the opposite. Bottom line, don’t assume anything – and make sure to substantiate your conclusions and plans with facts. Researching your persona is a good bet - and a great way to have a well informed social plan.
In any event, in the beginning – especially with limited resources, it is best to stick to no more than 2-3 networks to build your following and bolster your presence.
What In the World Should We Talk About?
As for the content – there are several approaches to creating a pipeline of content. The first was mentioned last time - i.e. what's interesting to your persona on LinkedIn - will make for great blog post contents.
Regardless of the network, however, make sure to focus on what is important to your persona. What are the questions he/she asks themselves? Answer those questions in your blog posts. Bring value. Bring new ideas, or even old ones with a new perspective. Bring lots of how to’s. People love (and appreciate) a great how-to.
You can start out with one blog post per week. And you can also make it as short as 300-350 words. You really don’t need more than that to make an impression and bring value. The more you write the less likely your post is to be read in its entirety.
Slice It & Dice It
And then . . . slice it and dice it. Take salient quotes from your blog post and use these to create posts for LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter – adjusting the length and style for each network (e.g. more professional for LinkedIn, more casual for Facebook, up to 140 characters with a couple of hashtags for Twitter). And . . . if you’ve got a flare for images – you can leverage the free online design platform for non-designers, Canva, to easily and quickly create a nice-looking Instagram image, add to it a punchy quote (and lots of relevant hashtags), and post it to your Instagram account.
For even greater leverage encourage employees and invite investors, partners, and even super-friendly customers to like and share your posts. The ripple effect will take hold and your value-added post will cascade to broader and broader audiences.
If you don't have the resources for one blog post per week, no worries. You can even do one every two (or three or four) weeks. Then take more than one quote from the and blog post and share your ideas every week on the social network. One blog post can go a very long way.
Don’t Forget to Measure Measure Measure
And, of course . . . make sure to track engagement. Go into your Google Analytics account to track the basic KPIs for blog post engagement: views, time on page, and source. See what’s driving traffic to your posts and leverage that source. Make sure to track the views and interactions, likes, shares, or retweets on the other channels as well. Leverage what's engaging, tweak (or forget about) what isn't.
Write, distribute, track, measure, tweak, repeat.
Want to get jiggy and streamlined with social? Get in touch and let’s do great marketing together >>