Is Storytelling in Social Media a Key Strategy for Your Marketing Team?

There’s a lot that goes into a social media strategy from content, to hashtags, to advertising, to engagement. However, it’s easy to forget, when you are in the trenches, the importance of storytelling on social media. Sparking conversations with your online community means that you must first have their attention. How do you get their attention? By telling stories that move them emotionally. 

How do you get your company from where it is right now to a business that actually has a social media strategy? Here are our best tips:

Tip #1 – Develop Your Social Media Standards

The key to social media strategy is to first have a plan! Develop standard policies for social media for your employees so they clearly understand what is appropriate and expected of them with your brand. This is especially important for your marketing and sales teams as they are more likely to engage with others as your brand online. 

Tip #2 – Empower Your Employees

Once you have a game plan, it’s time to train your team so they feel empowered and equipped with the knowledge necessary to engage your audience without damaging your brand. A confident team will engage with confidence. A side benefit of having an empowered team involved with your online presence and digital marketing is that their personal brand becomes a reflection of your corporate one. 

Tip #3 – Share Your Stories with Your Team

Storytelling is a skill that can be crafted. If you want your team to be social media storytellers, you first have to show them how it’s done! Start crafting your brand stories such as your origin tale, case stories, the impact you are making in the world, how you want your customers to feel, and the values that make your business the brand it is today. Then tell these stories to your employees often. 

It won’t happen overnight, but creating a company culture with an emphasis on storytelling will equip your team with what they need to really interact and inspire your audience online.

Are you looking for a social media company to train your staff on online marketing strategies and equip them with the tools to maintain engagement, spark interest through Linkedin, and build a solid foundation company wide? Call the Social Media Advisor!

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

How Can Your Business Serve Your Online Audience Better?

Many of us have had to shift our businesses recently to offer online and no contact options.  Have you come up with your plan to serve a shifting audience yet?  As the world becomes more automated, your customers will expect you to understand the apps and tools commonly used to make things like scheduling, payment, and support easy and efficient.

Scheduling

Many new and smaller businesses have grown accustomed to signing up new clients on a one-to-one basis – in-person or over the phone. The future is transitioning all of these administrative tasks online using modern apps and solutions. The key to modernizing your business and making it online-friendly is finding ways to automate tasks that are normally time-consuming and frustrating. No one enjoys playing phone tag with someone to set up an appointment. More and more individuals find that engaging in a phone conversation without an appointment is inconvenient. We don’t answer a call if we don’t know the number and we put our phones away in an attempt to be more productive. In this brave new world, investing in and setting up an online scheduler is essential for businesses wanting to efficiently and easily make appointments with leads and customers. There are lots of options available but we use YouCanBookMe.com.

Invoicing

We live in a world of online payment solutions. The days of waiting for a check to come in the mail are over. In fact, many people in the younger demographics don’t even use checks or carry cash which means an online invoicing tool is key. After all the hard work of persuading a lead to do business with you, don’t then make the process difficult by making payment inconvenient and hard to process. Whether you use Quickbooks Online for your business, have a Square or Stripe account, or use a CRM software with invoicing built-in – get familiar with a trusted tool and make payment easy and convenient for your customers.

Support

Do you have a system set-up on your website or social media to answer common questions and provide real-time support or your audience? If you find that people call 15 times a day asking about your location, setting up something on Facebook that answers that question or setting up your phone system to answer that question before transferring to you could save you time AND help you support your audience at the same time. Take some time to research options for online and phone options that could help your customer support efforts.


Another way to have more time to really focus on nurturing your leads and clients is to bring on help! Social media marketing doesn’t have to be tackled alone. Having a strategy in place for your social media postings will be key in developing relationships, staying relevant, and knowing how / what to post so you don’t run out of content.  By signing up for Quarterly Roadmap sessions, we will also cover the best ways to use ads and you’ll learn how to read reports so you aren’t wasting a ton of money. Instead, you’ll be strategic about your spending so you see results for your efforts. Contact The Social Media Advisor today to get started!

 

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

Social Media Goal Setting in a Pandemic

Last year was a 12-month period like most of us have never experienced before. It felt like a roller coaster of emotions and decision-making felt treacherous and overwhelming. If you struggled to figure out how to make the most out of your social media marketing in 2020, you certainly weren’t alone. 

However, the light is beginning to dawn again and it’s time to sort out your goals for social media marketing in 2021. Here are our best tips for both short-term and long-term goals to propel you into success this year.

Short-term Goals

Consistency

Many business owners fell off the wagon in terms of consistency in 2020. Unsure what to post and often concerned about posting the wrong thing, showing up consistently on social media got pushed to the back burner. Well, it’s a new year and it’s time to put yourself back out there! People won’t find you if you aren’t showing up and consistency is what gains attention and earns the trust of your audience.

Social Advertising

One of the things that happened during the pandemic is that people spent more time online and on social media than ever before. If you haven’t put together an ad strategy for your chosen social media platforms, now is a great time to start. Ads can deliver decent results with smaller package offers and this could be a smart entry point for your business and help you get warmed up to the idea of investing in social media advertising.

Robust Profile Optimizations

Now is the time to revamp your social media channels to get found by your people so you can make a bigger impact with your work. Every word matters. We help small businesses, like yours, maximize the potential of their social media profiles. A great profile, with the right keywords, will help your business get found and will convert your audience from followers to customers.

Long-term Goals

Relationship Building

What are you doing to nurture your existing relationships and build new ones? The pandemic made it more difficult to connect with people but humans are innovative and inventive. Networking went virtual in a big way in 2020 so there’s no excuse to not make the time to connect with the people in your professional network and start establishing new relationships. Looking for a new networking group in the Southeast Denver area that hasn’t closed up shop during the pandemic? Check out the Southeast Denver Chapter of Webo Network.

Conversation & Social Engagement

Social media was always meant to be social but too many small business owners post content and then walk away. If you are truly trying to build relationships on social, you’ll need to spend time engaging with conversations and starting many of your own. Your community can tell whether or not you are there for them online and they’ll only be there for you if you show up first.

Are you ready to hit the grounding running with social media this year? The pandemic may have set your business back but this isn’t a hurdle that you can’t bounce back from. Book a session with us to find out about our Robust Profile Optimizations for your social media profiles or to get support on becoming more consistent on social media this year!


Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

What Support Can You Provide Customers in Social Media?

In the Information Age, people have grown accustomed to heading to the Internet when they have problems, questions, or complaints. Successful companies understand the need to build a structure for troubleshooting, communication, and connection with their audience online. Social media marketing is known for being the place customers head when they need more information or they want to file a complaint of some sort. Why social media? Mostly because people are annoyed with long phone waits and cutting through corporate red tape when they have a problem that needs solving. Savvy businesses understand this and they have a plan for being present and responsive online.

Developing Systems for Social Media

Many customers will turn to social media as a way to connect directly with a brand. There are automation capabilities built into many of these social media platforms that allow you to be present for your audience and respond to inquiries, messages, and comments. Have a system or a plan in place to ensure that you are monitoring your social media engagement and being responsive to your budding social media community. This level of customer support and service is essential for successful businesses.

Processes for Troubleshooting and Concerns

As your business develops, are you documenting your policies and procedures for dealing with customer service inquiries, requests, and complaints on social media? You can create a document, with all pertinent information, on how to handle various issues as they arise and make certain that all team members who deal directly with customers have access to the information. This will ensure consistency across your company while keeping on eye on your brand integrity at the same time.

Create an Emergency Plan

Social media marketing is prime for public PR situations and crises so it’s important to be prepared to respond when one arises. It’s also essential to have a plan for power outages, cancellations, or weather-related issues – depending on what impacts your company. Your audience will turn to social media in an emergency situation and if no one is at the helm, posting updates and responding to questions, that may reflect poorly on your brand.

Many small businesses haven’t encountered much in the way of needing to communicate with their audience online but as that audience grows and the business and brand expands, this will change. Having systems and processes in place to deal with this before it is needed is just the type of forward-thinking strategy that keeps a business proactive instead of reactive.

Are you looking for a social media company to train your staff on online marketing strategies and equip them with the tools to maintain engagement, spark interest through Linkedin and other social media platforms, and build a solid foundation company-wide? Contact us to set up a training session for your sales team to improve your online marketing efforts.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

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