Like looking after the garden: 5 points of experience in social media operations

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Lead: We all play micro bo, micro-mail, but play and operation and build different. For enterprises, social media is a tool, is the marketing of sharp, the use of good will bring many surprises to the enterprise.

This is an article on how to use social media, we all play microblogging, social, but play and run and build different. For enterprises, social media is a tool, is the marketing of sharp, the use of good will bring many surprises to the enterprise. The metaphor of the article's image is illuminating, and the author team says the experiment is persuasive.

Now, in our office there is a metaphor that social media is like a garden: if you start out with a plan, work toward planning, use the right tools, and periodically clear the weeds, you will get a thriving social media; If you don't, your efforts in social media will be meaningless, Like a neglected garden.

A social media program that takes care of itself can have a huge payoff, and the more time you spend on social media marketing, the more rewarding you get.

Here are some statistics from the social media examiner's annual social Media marketing survey of about 3,000 marketers:

At least half of marketers who have used social media for more than three years say that social media did help them boost sales.

75% of participants found that even if they spent just six hours a week in social media marketing, there would be a significant increase in web traffic.

Even with the smallest amount of time, the vast majority of marketers (up to 89%) say their efforts in social media have increased the visibility of their business.

Half of marketers who have invested in social media for more than 1-2 years say they have a new partnership through social media.

To cultivate a thriving social media, the following five things need to be done.

1. First, there's a plan.

When a business owner or marketer registers a Facebook page and Twitter account (or any other social platform), they are usually just starting to publish content for no reason ... Then think about why people are not flocking to visit the page or account. Yes, there are lucky few (mostly celebrities and major brands) that have jumped to various platforms and immediately find viewers. They are the exception. Most businesses, even the best-known, have to invest time and effort to get a large number of online audiences.

To make sure that you spend time and effort on social media is worthwhile, making a plan is necessary. To determine your content policy.

First, by defining your audience and what type of content they might like.

Then decide what social platform your business wants and what it should be shared across each platform.

Finally, make a timetable. You can use a simple Excel document to make a schedule for publishing content and status updates.

2. Use the right tools

Often published, below you will learn more and is critical to your social media platform style. It keeps them alive! However, when you are managing a large number of social media accounts, it may be difficult to publish regularly. Luckily, we have tools available.

Think of these tools in your social media garden such as shovels, rakes and hoes, and you need them to help you plant plants (status updates) faster and more efficiently. Through social tools such as HootSuite or buffer, this is a timely release of the tools, the regular publication of content is simple and save time. When you use a dashboard like a hootsuite or buffer social media. If your business is investing heavily in photo sharing, try Pingraphy. This is an effective tool for nailing pictures on time.

A lot of other apps can make your life a lot easier than the tools you publish on time. For example, according to the Syncapse2013 report, 35% of Facebook fans like to use a page to compete. Third-party apps, such as ShortStack, can protect you from the pain of running a race on Facebook. One thing is for sure: Choosing a good third-party application can save you time and make sure that your game runs according to Facebook guidelines.

3. Weed Removal

Every once in a while, about a quarter or so, to analyze your social media efforts to see what is effective, what is ineffective. Last summer, for example, my marketing team did a very intense job: not updating our Facebook page for one weeks, and dramatically reducing the amount of publishing in the next two weeks (see below).

We have a lot of risk in doing this, but we have to find the weeds, that is, the low absorbing content that makes our pages less efficient. We have a theory: because we publish more frequently (3-5 times a day), Facebook's filtering algorithms only show our content to fans who are already interested in our content.

By reducing the update to one to two times a day or a full week, we think Facebook will display our content, and when we decide to update it, we are facing a new, larger group of fans. After our three-week experiment, we learned that our theory was wrong. (see below for details).

4. Continuous attention

In order to maintain a relevant online audience, your business must remain active in social media. This is a painful lesson we learned from our Facebook experiment. To explain what we call a "bitter lesson", we have an accurate breakdown of the consequences of the experiment:

Week 1th: In the first week, we reduced from three to five daily releases to one daily. The result: the number of our comments has declined, but we have also kept the status of the update.

Week 2nd: In the second week, we don't have seven days to update. After our seven days of Quiet Days, we released a status update to evaluate its effects. Results: Our page commented on the number of plunging, we were silent after the release of the first state, only a very low degree of attention. We've lowered our average 3000 attention to 600 people.

Week 3rd: In our last week, we decided to release it two times a day. As a result: the arrival of our content has risen a bit, but it is still very low before our experiment. We are talking about this number at a low level compared to our prior average. The number of our comments is lower than before.

From this experiment, we found out what kind of content the audience responds best. We learned that it doesn't matter (within a reasonable range) that we keep publishing what we already know about the audiences we love. Based on our "Facebook Silence" experiment, and based on the number of participants we observed within two weeks, our average release was focused on 8,500 and our comments came back in the end.

5. Keep Watering It

Just as if a long time does not often water the garden will die, if you do not take care of it every day, your social media will also die.

After two weeks of our Facebook experiment, we started releasing 3-5 articles a day like before. At that time, the arrival of our update has not yet fully recovered. We kept the minimum amount of release in the three-week test for a while. Now, slowly, but surely yes, our arrival degree and comment rose again. Our garden is back to life!

Comparing social media to a garden may be a bit silly, but it does make sense. Social media is only going to work after you put your energy into it. Social media will not erupt overnight, like a garden that does not produce flowers, fruits or vegetables overnight. It requires a plan, the right tools, constant attention, and the most important commitment. (Compile: Yang Weilong)