AKRON — Can you believe it? It's almost June already. This year is just flying by. It seems like just yesterday, we were discussing how to work on a social media strategy at the beginning of the year. If you haven't already, it's time to check back in and see how your strategy is going.
As we know, social media is evolving constantly and if we aren't checking in on our strategies, then we might not be optimizing social media as much as we could be. Making a social media strategy at the beginning of the year and only checking in once a year leaves a lot of gap time in between. Think of this like any other strategy you have for your business. If you put in place a new customer service strategy, would you wait an entire year evaluating it? Hopefully not. And if you do, what could happen in a year?
Do you ever scroll through your analytics on Facebook and/or Twitter? It's a great place to start evaluating your social media strategy. For Facebook, go to your company page and click the ellipsis next to the “Share” tab and a drop-down menu will appear. Click “View Insights” and it will show you data from the past week, such as page likes, post reach and engagement. You can click on each of these topics and change the date range to see how these categories have changed over time.
If you see that your engagement started dropping a few weeks ago, take a look at if your posting style has changed. Did you get really busy and stop posting as frequently? This could have an effect on your results.
One thing I like to do at least once a month is scroll through the “Posts” analytics tab on Facebook. It shows me all of the posts that Tire Business has posted and I see what it working well with our audience. I can also see what isn't working for our audience and this information helps our social media team adjust either the time when we post or what kind of content we post. This is something that you could do to help shape your social media strategy that does not take that much time to do.
Twitter also has a simplified analytics system. Type in https://analytics.twitter.com/user/YOURHANDLE/home so like https://analytics.twitter.com/user/jenniferkarpus/home and it will pull up your analytics. It will give you a quick look at your top tweet, top mention, top follower and also a monthly summary. Take a look at this monthly summary and see how the impressions and visits change and if there were any changes you made in your posting or posting schedule. See what is working best and try it again.
I should note, there are all kinds of analytics you can purchase that can give you more in-depth looks. For instance, HootSuite and other social media dashboards have analytics you can purchase. However, if you are looking for a cost-effective way to start off, look at what the individual sites have to offer and then go from there.
After taking a look at your analytics, there are a few other things I would do when checking in with your social media strategy. Speak to your employees about their thoughts. Do they have any suggestions on ways you could be using social media more? Does someone else want to get involved with the social media team?
If you ran any kind of campaign, whether it was a photo contest or a tire discount, have an open dialogue about how it went. Speak to those at the counter and see if customers came in and talked about it in the store. If it was a positive campaign, think about how you could take the great aspects about it and create another campaign down the road. If the campaign wasn't successful, why not? Where did it go wrong and what could you improve upon for next time?
And then, I would even reach out to the customers. Maybe there are some customers you engage with regularly on social media. Open up a dialogue. Tell them you appreciate the engagement you have with them and you were wondering if there was anything they would like to see that they are not. You can have that conversation in the store, too.
Once you collect all your data, then set up a meeting with your social media team — or if you don't have one, your executives — and talk about your findings. Create a framework of an editorial calendar for your social media for the rest of the year. If you did have a successful photo contest, think about how you could plan another one. Maybe you decide you want to tie it in with a holiday, like the Independence Day or Halloween. These types of conversations are what will help create the best social media presence you can have.
Have any questions? Reach out to me at [email protected] or @jenniferkarpus.