Committing or recommitting your organization to its social media strategy is a great way to reinvigorate your social media presence. From TechCrunch to Huffington Post, news platforms talk about the return on investment of social media and how it can shape any organization for the better. Here are five ways to grow your organization’s social media New Year’s resolutions from lofty ideas to measurable results:
- Post what you would like to see, not what you think your followers want. Anything you post on social media is always going to be seen by more people than those who comment on or retweet it. Why not make your posts exciting and interesting to read? If you are posting for the sake of posting, chances are you are providing little value to your members. Do everyone a service and really think about what you would want to see on an organization’s social media page. Launching a new product or program? Consider giving your followers a sneak peak so they feel valued.
- Pictures do it better. Humans are visual. Engage your audience on a platform they already understand by using images over straight text. Utilize sites like YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest to show rather than tell your message, events, or goals. A good, short video is always an added bonus.
- Say it short and sweet. Social media is all about brevity. Twitter limits your language to 140 characters, and no one likes to read a novel on Facebook or listen to one on YouTube. Think and rethink what you want to say to your followers in a way that is concise, easy to understand, and provides something in return. After all, more than 30 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook each month. You want yours to stick out.
- Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Being on eight social media sites is great if you can support them all. If these eight sites are sparsely used, consider hiring additional employees to tackle these accounts or cutting the cord and disconnecting from those sites. Chances are you were posting so infrequently that your followers will hardly notice you are gone!
- Evaluate constantly. The easiest way to show ROI is to measure it. Most social media platforms provide very detailed, free, user aggregated data. Use this data to show social media nonbelievers that Facebook is more than an endless pit of baby pictures and engagement announcements.
Social media is one of the most cost effective ways to keep your audience engaged. Happy pinning, tweeting, facebooking, or however you choose to interact on social media!
