Social media self-reflection
Struggling to keep up with newsfeeds, connection requests and posts to craft?
You may feel as if you’ve jumped on the bandwagon and joined too many social media platforms, especially if time spent on them is eating into other tasks. If so, look back and consider why you initially joined.
Business or pleasure?
In this blog, we’ll focus on business profiles, but it is a good idea to differentiate between how you use platforms for socialising and how you use them differently for business networking. If you can separate the two, you can start to think more about what you should be using each platform for. Think about how each platform can work for your product, brand or service.You may want to inform or educate on a particular subject or issue. Perhaps you wish to build an online community, or encourage customers to create positive content about your product or service. Or your top priority might be to increase visitors to your website or stores, encourage sales, or gain greater brand awareness.
Reflecting on how you have been using social media for your business may help you refocus on a direction to take for the future.
Are you engaging with the right audience?
It’s worth taking a good look at all the platforms you’re using and checking whether one is faltering behind the others. If there’s little engagement on one profile, it’s time to reconsider its worth. But, before you decide to close the platform, ask yourself whether you have been:- Following/connecting with your industry?
- Getting involved in conversations and sharing other people’s posts?
- Creating interesting posts/content that is of benefit to your followers?
- Regularly making a plan of what you want to talk about?
- Scheduling posts, but also posting live to stay current?
- Responding to messages from your followers/connections?
- Advertising on the social media platform. Do you have a budget?
It’s a good idea to spend time listening and watching to understand whether your industry is represented on the social media platforms you’re using. If it is, then, there’s an opportunity for you to learn more about what people think of your company, and the industry. You can also get involved in conversations and start sparking discussion, if that’s part of your wider plan.
