What are the best practices for social What community management?

Having a marketing strategy that includes proven social media best practices for business is a great way to gain exposure for your products and services–without eating up too much of your budget.

Nowadays, the average person spends 3 or more hours per day on a range of social media sites. You’re part of the 74% of adults online which engage in this activity (the most on Facebook).

With so many networks to consider, what’s the best way to maximize your company’s social media marketing campaigns?

It doesn’t have to be difficult, if your business follows these seven best practices for social media strategy:

1. Set Measurable Social Media Goals

Start by defining how you want social media to help your business.

Establishing objectives will help set marks that can be tracked and measured. This allows you to focus on winning strategies, and quickly pivot as things change.

2. Choose the Right Social Media Networks

It’s no lie: social media activity can be time-consuming. Trying to manage all of the networks will water down your resources and take away from the channels that bring successful results.

Use your target customer and their online behaviors, to determine which networks will work best for your products and services.

Narrowing down the field for your small business social media strategy will give you more time to create the right content for the right followers.

3. Brand Your Social Media Profile Pages

The perception of your company’s identity should be uniform across all channels. You’re not only building a stronger brand, but also creating awareness and loyalty.

Make it easy for consumers to recognize your business by maintaining consistency across the following areas:

• Logo & Tagline. Always use the same logotype for your brand. This is a huge visual which will stick with your audience. If you have a memorable tagline, maintain the same one everywhere (and try to use it in conjunction with your logo).
• Imagery. Graphics and photos are other visuals which will resonate strongly with your consumers. You can customize virtually any social media page with images; use the same ones across networks to maintain a similar look and feel for your brand.
• Company Description. Use a clear, easy-to-digest “about us” description that is consistent across all your pages. Get to the point in the fewest amount of words; your customers should immediately grasp what it is  that your business can do for them. Add your website in this description if you have room.
• Tone & Voice. What is the personality of your brand, and what kinds of words do you use to communicate? Connect with your customers in an authentic way, and in the same way across all social media.

4. Content Quality Over Quantity

More is not always better! Just like on your website and blog, you’ll want to generate quality social media content that is valuable to your customers.

A good social media content mix includes equal parts of the following types:

• Promotional
• Thought leadership
• Engagement with followers

Be sure that your social pages stay up-to-date with relevant and timely posts.

5. Monitor Social Media Analytics

Taking a look at your social media analytics on a weekly basis will give you the data needed to support your goals & objectives.

There are a few ways to do this: through a dashboard like Hootsuite or Buffer, with Google Analytics, or by using the native tool that each specific social network may offer.

6. Check Out Competitors

To really witness current social media best practices for business, take a look at what’s happening around your industry.

Examine how competitors manage their brand on social media channels, and which content generates interaction and engagement.

Find a few benchmark influencers in your industry type, to see how your own small business social media strategy can improve.

7. Be Patient and Stick with It

It can take time to build a loyal following, by gaining trust and nurturing the relationship. While social media posting may be fleeting among the massive amounts of content generated every minute, it pays to implement a strategy and target the right consumers.

By following the above best practices with consistency and patience, you’ll be on your way to social media success!