When you’re populating your social media feeds, don’t be afraid to deviate from your plans.

We’re big fans of creating social media plans – whether you choose to do that weekly, monthly or even yearly – however it’s important to remember that a plan is just an intention of activity!

Don’t feel constrained by what you wrote in your plan – it can be so important – and beneficial to you – to be spontaneous on social media. Keep an eye on what’s happening around you and get involved, don’t avoid interesting content because it doesn’t appear at the “right” time!

Something for nothing, a freebie, donation, giveaway, present. Whatever you call it, we all like the idea of getting something without paying! How many of us choose where to have a coffee because the cafe offers free WiFi?!

You can apply the same to your business! Don’t be afraid to offer something free to your online followers.  Whether that’s a tip, a resource they can download, a link to something useful there are so many ways you can offer your customers something for nothing.

Remember you’re not giving your expertise away for free; rather you’re showing your followers they matter, you’re showing your expertise in your field and your confidence in sharing that expertise.  All a great recipe for encouraging people to use you for more!! 

Who will people remember; the person who charges for all their advice or the person who you can pop on their social media channels and get regular bite-size information for free? 

We’ve often spoken about the important of good quality content on social media, ensuring that your timeline isn’t simply a hard sell.

That isn’t to say that if you have something in particular to sell you shouldn’t announce it! Make sure anything that could be of interest to potential customers; events, new products, courses etc. are shared on your social media feeds.

If you’ve already created a following with high-interest content, you have a good audience to share your offering to; with the ultimate goal converting leads to sales.

We like to work towards the 80/20 rule with making 80% of your content interesting, creative or informative whilst devoting 20% to sales.

Give it a try!

Consistency really is key when it comes to your social media performance.

Were you posting consistently in 2021 across your social media channels? If not, that should be your number one goal within your social media plan for 2022.  If you want to see tangible results, you need to post regularly.  This will help your followers stay engaged and connected and help your content show up in your followers feeds.

As a minimum, we recommend posting on your channels at least three times a week.

By now you should have your social media strategy for the coming year well and truly in place.

Remember your strategy should cover the following: –

1. Online presence – where will you send prospective customers to find out more?
2. Content strategy – where are your target audience and what sort of content do they look for?
3. Social media – which social media channels you will use and what content you will share
4. Brand – this should be in place before you venture into the online word and should cover a name, a logo, and a voice.
5. Analytics/insights – use the tools provided to collate data on your online performance which will help you improve your performance.
6. Content management – keeping track of all the information you share including planning future posts.

How do you like to plan?