Managing Your Media to Reach Your Desired Leads
Managing a social media presence for a company is much more than posting Instagram posts, announcing sales on Yelp, or responding to messages on LinkedIn. Racking up likes, tacking comments, and gaining followers seem to be par for the course for social media strategists, but most of these roles are situated within companies that are established, what about new firms? If the main goal of social media within a business is to grow leads and gain traction for your company and brand, how can this be achieved for a budding or new brand?
I have been on both sides of this coin, managing a large social media presence for a large following and no following at all. While it may seem intuitive to try and start posting and creating content from the get-go, certain steps are best followed by companies with certain followings.
For large companies with large followings, about over 2,000, we can consider these firms to carry a considerable amount of weight. Sprout Social explains that these “micro-influencers” or accounts with 1,000- 10,000 followers are a great way to bring awareness to a brand or company, drawing new clients in. While these companies cannot stack up to heavy weights within their categories (LAUSD within education has over 40K followers, and Dunn-Edwards within home improvement has over 26K) their presence does carry a certain sway. A school with over 2,000 followers that resides within LAUSD would account for over 2% of its stakeholders at one of its sites. It would be safe to assume that news that came out of these school’s social media channels would garner the district’s attention. More so, on a positive note, social media highlights that are frequently posted for district channels are more likely to garner positive attention and overall create positive outcomes within the school’s administration and future engagements with the district. The best approach to harness a large social media following is to revise the previous content on the sites. Evaluate the tone and direction that the last manager was conveying, was it clear, was it professional, or was there room for improvement? Beyond these Cursory checks, you want to make a cohesive narrative going forward with the social media presence online- logos and color schemes for branding, revised posts and content to enhance branding, and tagging with keywords and hashtags to extend reach to followers and non-followers. For smaller firms, its easier said than done.
While it is important to create an online presence by having online content, a new business has to focus on what, and specifically who, to sell to. For example, while a lawn mowing company may want to market to homeowners, a tree care and removal service may want to focus on apartments or HOAs as trees are more abundant there than around homes where only two or three can fit on a property. Once the customer base is identified, the marketing can begin, what kind of demographic, age, characteristics, etc. From this point, it is vital to start with grassroots promotions and word of mouth to get the brand and company going. If you run a car washing business, passing some cards around car part shops, mechanics, and race tracks could be a way to get your name out and snag some clients. Once a few clients are secured, serviced, and satisfied the most essential part of the process is next, follow-up. Ensure that your satisfied customers are also your followers on social media, offer discounts for reviews on Yelp or other sites for reviews, and make sure to respond to inquiries when they arise. While creating a presence online from the ground up is difficult, it is not impossible. Let MendEd Solutions take up this challenge for your firm and create your client base from the ground up.
