Social media management can be very time consuming. You need to publish posts; you need to answer customer queries, engage with your community and find prospective clients to get leads. How can you do this without being on your phone or laptop all day? Here are four tips that you can start implementing straight away.

1. Automate:
For an effective social media marketing, you need to show up every single day. Social media marketing is a 24/7 business. This means you need to have a constant stream of content to push out. Use scheduling tools such as Hootsuite, Buffer or SmarterQueue.
Everyone has different priorities so it is a very personal choice when it comes to selecting one of these tools. Luckily they all offer free trials; so you can decide which one to go for. Once you set it up, you can control all your accounts from one dashboard. Getting ahead on scheduling, will give you more time to actively engage with your community.

2.Find great content: There are some amazing content aggregation tools out there.Some of these can also be integrated with the scheduling tools mentioned above. My personal favourites are Flipboard, Feedly,Buzzsumo and  Google Alerts. Then it is a matter of selecting which content to share.Remember; you don't want to promote your business all the time, share valuable content that people will want to read, engage and share. 

3.Engage,engage,engage: Use every single opportunity to engage with your followers. Don't let comments go unnoticed, reply any queries you receive and look out for opportunities to talk with prospective clients.

4.Build relationships and leads will follow: It is also very important to build relationships with other businesses from your industry, local businesses, prospective clients, influential people, journalists, bloggers and so on. Twitter and Instagram are amazing platforms, you can virtually talk with anyone on these channels. If you are authentic and helpful, people will be interested in talking to you, engage with your content and you will see business results as well. 

Do you have any other tips that work for you? Let me know in the comments.

Do you want to improve your Facebook page? Here are seven tips to get you started.

1.Find and share great content: Every piece of content you share must be attractive and targeted. Remember; people like short and snackable content. Educate your followers about your business, share inspiring quotes and funny posts that they will be inclined to share with their friends.

2.Engage,engage,engage: Use your Facebook page to speak with your community: Ask simple questions, grab the moment by posting news and popular stories. Encourage conversation.

3.Watch what other pages are doing. Once you reach to one hundred Facebook followers, you can add up to five pages in the insights section and watch them. What are they doing differently? What kind of content is popular on their pages? How can you create something similar but unique?

4. Check out Facebook Insights to see at what time your audience is online. What kind of content is creating more buzz? Share similar content again.

5. There is an amazing free tool to analyse your Facebook page: Likealyzer. It audits your account and tells you what can be improved. This is especially great if you are new to Facebook marketing and not quite sure how to improve it. Check it weekly and tweak your page accordingly.

6.Be consistent with what you're posting and how your posts make your brand look and feel.

7. We have all heard the saying, "those that fail to plan, plan to fail." Schedule your posts and engage with other pages' posts. One or two Facebook posts per day is enough and manageable to build an audience. 

If you need any help please get in touch.

Instagram used to be a trendy Iphone app but it has quickly become one of the largest social media platforms. As of December 2016, Instagram had 600 million users. The platform will continue to grow in 2017. So how can you tap into the platform and effectively market your business on Instagram?

To start off optimise your profile. When someone visits your profile, they need to be able to understand what you do or what your business has to offer. Adding emojis to your Instagram bio makes your brand memorable, as a pop of colour stands out more than simple text.

Now we can start considering the day-to-day activities.

1. Instagram is not "instant" any more. To gain leads, you have to be strategic so only post your best images. Remember, when someone lands on your Instagram page, they take a quick look at the 9 photo grid and decide whether or not to follow you.

2. Time : When is your audience online? For example if you're marketing to mums, it's not a good idea to post between 6-8pm in the evenings when most mums are busy with dinner and bedtime. So you need to be strategic about the times you post.

​You also have to post consistently to be able to grow your account. Aim to post once a day, but if you don't have too many images, post at least 3 times a week and make sure you spend time on the platform and engage with people on the days you're not posting.

3. If you want a cohesive feed, you need to plan in advance which photos you will publish. There are some apps (Mosaic, Planoly, Later etc.) that let you arrange photos in your grid so you can see how to colours fit in before posting the photos.

4.Drive traffic to your website  content by sharing relevant visual content. Make it easy for your followers to visit your page by adding your link in your profile. 

5.Don't post and go! As soon as you publish a post, engage with your followers, answer any queries, reply to their comments. Which hashtags have you used? Search those hashtags and engage with the photos that come up in your search. Use geotagging as research shows that photos with geotagging increase engagement.

6.If your followers are sharing photos of your product, reposting user generated content is a wonderful way of connecting with your community. 

7. Ask questions and invite your community to interact with you. Always add a call-to-action to your posts.

8.Share behind the scenes photos. People buy from people they know and trust. Share the story of your brand and business by showing your audience the people behind the business, or if you have a product, you can share the production process. Have you been to an event? Share it on Instagram stories or do a quick live session.

9.Don't forget to use emojis! Research shows that posts with emojis create more engagement. Even if you're a bit apprehensive using them on other platforms, make the most of emojis in Instagram marketing.

If you need more help regarding social media marketing, please get in touch.