I love social media but there are so many people who utterly don’t understand it. They look at the wrong numbers over and over. Here are some conversations I have had lately:
Client: I want to give my Social Media manager some goals. Maybe I should tell him we need to have 2,000 likes by January 1st.
Me: Hmmm…. you could, but perhaps it would be better if you tell him you want to sell 50 widgets by January 1st track able to Facebook.
Client: I deleted everyone I followed on Twitter if they were not following me. Now my numbers balance.
Me: Who are those people you’re following? What are they posting?
Client: Who knows? I don’t have time to read Twitter.
Me: Time to close the account.
You see, the numbers that matter are in your accounting, not on your Facebook page or your Twitter account. And the audience you target should be the ones who are going to buy from you. Not the ones who “followed you back” or Liked you because of an ad.
You could get your message out on Facebook to more than a thousand people daily while only having 25 Likes. How is that? Have your Page like Pages in complimentary industries. If you are a plumbing company have your page like other local contractors, realtors, hardware purveyors., etc. Then comment on the posts their Pages post. Their customers will see your comments. You can even go down the comments on a post of theirs and Like everyone who commented. So each of those commenters gets a notification that says, “Amazing Plumbing of San Luis Liked your comment.” That’s brand penetration. Do they have to Like you back? No. It would be smart of them if they did, but either way, you have leveraged that Social Media account.
Are you on Twitter? Do the same thing. Reply, favorite and retweet what complimentary businesses have tweeted. Yep, that means you or your social media manager have to read their tweets. Now, pay attention to news and current events that affect your prospective clients and tweet about it. Not about yourself or your business. If you are an insurance company, for instance, you may get up one day and think, “Hmmmm I can post about the new staff member I just hired or the fact that the laws for flood insurance are about to change.” Which is more informational to your client? Yep, the flood insurance laws. Tweet about it and be sure to use hashtags like your local town name #Dantonville and #FloodInsurance.
So, summary of this post? Make alliances with other businesses, post info that your clients want to know, look at your bottom line instead of your number of followers or likes, read what others are posting so you can interact with them.