Social Media and the 12 Days of Christmas
When the turkey is all eaten and the presents all opened – it is time to relax, chill out a bit and maybe think about what this year has meant for you. Maybe it’s time to start thinking about where you want your business to be by next Christmas. And that involves a bit of social media planning.
So in the true spirit of Christmas songs and festivities here are our 12 days of Christmas Social Media Sorcery (or is it Saucery?) –
On the First Day of Christmas my true love said to me – Tweet Daily.
I know it’s not the most interesting thing you could do right now – I’m sure you would rather be watching the Queens speech – however consistency is the first step to having a very merry Christmas next year. Get into the habit of tweeting daily. If people are used to seeing you – well that is the first step to get someone to know, like and trust you. All things you MUST have before anyone will even think about doing business with you.
On the Second Day of Christmas my true love said to me – Share useful content.
This means give your followers stuff they are interested in, like and will find useful That does NOT mean selling your services at every opportunity. Sure you might want to drop in the odd tweet about a workshop you are holding, a webinar you are running or a special offer on your book (what do you mean you haven’t written a book yet?). Give first. Plenty of useful content. Otherwise you will be seen like one of those annoying people at networking events who go around gathering as many business cards as possible so they can bombard those people with sales messages. DON’T DO IT.
On the Third Day of Christmas my true love said to me – Set a Social Media Goal for 2016
People with written goals tend to achieve them. As long as it is realistic, knowing what you want to achieve will keep you on track and relevant. So – do you want to engage with existing customers? Test out a new product? Get people into your funnel? Having a goal helps you curate the right content for your target audience. If you don’t know what you are trying to achieve then you need to go back to setting a Strategy. If you need any help with that let us know!
On the Fourth Day of Christmas my true love said to me – Engage.
Yes I know it’s Christmas and you have turkey sandwiches and left over buffet to eat and tonnes of port to drink – but remember to spend 10 minutes a day engaging. Look for @mentions and retweets and direct messages and respond. If you don’t, do not be surprised if these people don’t bother engaging with you in the future. It’s like ignoring someone who says “hi” to you in the corridor. It is just rude, and they won’t bother next time.
On the Fifth Day of Christmas my true love said to me – Don’t Hard Sell On Social Media.
And especially not on Facebook. People don’t go onto Facebook to buy stuff, they go on to be informed, entertained and to feel part of something. So give them information, make them laugh, make them think, ask questions, post cute cat photo’s – whatever – but do NOT hard sell.
On the Sixth Day of Christmas my true love said to me – Be Visual.
Post photos and videos. This type of content gets far more engagement of all varieties. People are getting less inclined to read – so save your long copy for your blog posts, and make the posts on FB short, snappy and backed up with photo’s, pictures, videos to have maximum effect.
On the Seventh Day of Christmas my true love said to me – Promote Your Website
One of the big pluses in social media is that you can direct traffic through to your website and also, the more likes and shares you get the higher you will rank on Google. So never underestimate the power of social media for helping you get found on the internet.
On the Eighth Day of Christmas my true said to me – to #Hashtag or not to #Hashtag.
Most people know what a hashtag is, and most don’t know how to use them properly. Broad generalisation we know – but true! Consider the medium first and how to use the # properly for that social media.
On the Ninth Day of Christmas my true love said to me – Schedule a Christmas and New Years Message.
On the basis that in social media you should be building a tribe of people who love you, why would you NOT want to say Happy Christmas and Happy New Year to them? Scheduling a tweet or a post is also easier than trying to do it at the time (networks are busy – you might have had a cheeky glass of champagne to two). And it’s just nice isn’t it, to get a nice message from people you follow.
On the Tenth Day of Christmas my true love said to me – Re-Cycle Great Content.
You spend hours writing an article or finding interesting articles to share, then you tweet about it once. That’s crazy.
There is nothing wrong with sharing the same content more than once – especially on Twitter – because the news feed moves so quickly. But keep in mind that this strategy works best with “evergreen” content. What I mean by that is – don’t post stuff about Christmas in March, only repost articles, blogs or white papers that will be useful over and over again for anyone who finds it.
Your reused content might not be as popular the second, third, or fourth time you share it – or it might do better!. Over time these can add to a substantial amount of new leads, conversions and potentially paying customers
On the Eleventh Day of Christmas my true love said to me – Use links with visual content
As per our earlier tips about being visual (because that creates more engagement, more likes and more shares), enhance that further by having great links driving traffic back to your website or landing page. Social media is the start of the funnel – as soon as possible – you want to get people who care about your content into your tribe and onto your email list so you can.
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas my true love said to me – Create a 12 month Plan.
This is the ideal time to set up a plan for 2016, using all current avenues and your knowledge of what is working for you etc and incorporating your own priorities for short, medium and long term. For a free, no obligation social media check – book your appointment here.
