Social media requires a great deal of forethought: While it’s useful to draw attention, it is also easy to get off message. At best, this means momentary disinterest or confusion. At worst: Lost business. To prevent this, we asked nine entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC):
“What is one tip for keeping on top of your company’s social media accounts and ensuring all content is on brand?”
Social Media Brand Management Tips
1. Hire a Social Media Coordinator
“Social media won’t necessarily bring in direct sales, but it can bring you visibility and brand recognition. Hiring a social media coordinator — someone who is experienced in and understands social media — is a great way to ensure your companies social media is relevant and on brand. Look at each candidate’s background and previous work before hiring to make sure you find the right person for the job.” ~ Jared Brown, Hubstaff Talent
2. Use Adept Interns and Review What They Plan on Sharing
“If you don’t have a dedicated social media manager, assign responsibility to your interns to manage social media accounts and content. Have a team member approve everything before it is shared or posted, and ensure the content is on-message and on-brand. Most of the content should be related to your business in some way.” ~ Duran Inci, Optimum7
3. Clearly Define Strategy and Processes to Stakeholders
“While there are a number of tools, such as Hootsuite, SproutSocial or Mention, that can help with this, the most important aspect is to have a social media strategy in place. Once you have a strategy in place, you need to clearly define and communicate the individual processes. This way, stakeholders know what is on brand and what is not, as well as what the approval process is.” ~ Kevin Getch, Webfor
4. Review Engagement Reports Monthly
“A monthly review of social analytics provides a snapshot of audience engagement. Not only does monthly reporting ensure that a company can stay on top of social media account activity, but reviewing the report can also offer new definitions of what is “on brand.” Your customers define your brand, and reviewing content with the best response enables you to give them more of what they want.” ~ Brett Farmiloe, Markitors
5. Use a Social Media Monitoring Service
“Use a social media monitoring service such as Google Analytics or HootSuite. Either will help you keep track of all of your social media accounts and assist in making sure that all content is on brand.” ~ Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance
6. Create a Content Style Guide
“A company should maintain an updated content style guide that details its brand’s mission, voice and style. This guide should describe the brand’s tone (casual or professional), the appropriate types images to use (photography or illustrations), general content topics to avoid, punctuations to use, etc.” ~ Adelyn Zhou, TOPBOTS
7. Set a Social Media Schedule
“Create a schedule for delivering content, checking in on comments, and responding to questions or comments. This time frame keeps you focused on when you need to deal with social media, rather than having it just come up when you have a moment to check.” ~ Peter Daisyme, Due
8. Automate Process Through Buffer
“The best way to stay on top of social media is by automating the process. There are many pieces of software that allow you to do that. Buffer is a good tool that allows you to post to multiple social media accounts, as well as schedule future posts. Before anything is published, you can review posts to make sure content is on brand.” ~ Volkan Okay Yazici, Stonexchange
9. Do a Social Media Audit of Your Channels
“A social media audit will help you understand which platforms, such as Facebook or Twitter, are performing the best for you. Discover what channel brings in the most traffic and where your most engaged audiences are. Use that intel to decide where you’ll invest your time, and then set goals, such as how often you’ll post, or when. We’ve been able to keep a good cadence on social media now that we have a plan.” ~ Vincent Wong, mHelpDesk
Social Media Photo via Shutterstock
This article, "9 Methods for Keeping Your Social Media Content on Brand" was first published on Small Business Trends
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