Activity vs Productivity
Do you feel like a hamster spinning on a wheel when it comes to your social media updates? You’re just going round and round from one social program to the next. While you’re liking this and posting that, you’re wondering why no one is clicking on your links, contacting you for a discovery call or buying your stuff.
If that’s what your day looks like then you’re filling your time with a lot of activity and not much productivity.
Spending your time in your social programs is always a good thing for your company. You want your customers to know that you’re out there to connect with them in the interwebs and you’re not some automated spambot. All that posting is good for connecting but that’s not going to make you your next big sale.
To turn your social activity into something productive, you need a plan.
I know what your day is like as a small business owner. You plan out your day from the moment you turn on the computer to mapping out how to finish that client project to replying to all the emails in your inbox.
If you spent your day just clicking on this, looking at that or making calls without a plan, you wouldn’t get anything done.
Content Calendar equals Productivity
The social experts tell us that to be more productive online that you should plan out your content on all your social networks. Put it in this calendar they say, sign up for this program they’ll tell you. And don’t forget to include all of your events, promotions or products your company plans to launch this year.
I don’t know about you, but reading those last few sentences wore me out. That just sounds like a great big overwhelming project that will eventually turn into the “I’ll get to that one later” pile.
Let’s just all take a deep breath and break this down into something that you’ll actually do instead of taking up space in the corner of your desk.
Those big social experts recommend you plan for a full year but to keep this from becoming an overwhelming task, I suggest you plan your content for just the next 3 months. Life as a small business owner has a way of changing throughout the year and you want to be able to make adjustments in your marketing plans.
To create your content calendar, you have a ton of options you can use: an online calendar like a Google calendar, a WordPress plugin, Evernote, excel spreadsheets, word document, desk calendar or whatever you’re comfortable with.
It really doesn’t matter what you use – just write or type it out somewhere as your reference guide.
Think about including this information:
- What type of content will you post – blog post link, video or a promotion to meet you on your next Blab?
- What days and times will it be posted – use this as a guide to help you plan out which posts will get scheduled and which ones you’ll post up manually.
- Which social networks will you use – each social site has it’s own language and way of communicating with your connections. You certainly wouldn’t want to post up your Facebook fan page copy on your Twitter feed. Think about how you’ll craft your copy for each of your social programs.
Got my calendar, now what?
Now that you have your content calendar, think about the marketing message you want to deliver as well as the dates of your product launches and promotions. These messages will be the foundation of your content.
When you spend the time to work out the dates in your content plan, you’ll find your social media implementation will be easier to manage and allow you to plan ahead.
The more information and detail you include in the plan, the better you can measure its effectiveness. The idea is to create a layout of your content ideas broken down into what you’ll post that month. You can break it down even further into what you’ll post each week.
When you first get started, you may want to drill it down even more and list what you’ll post on each day. With each listing include your resource article links, images, videos or just a 2 -3 word prompt with topic ideas.
My 70-20-10 rule
I believe in the 70-20-10 rule when it comes to social media marketing. 70% of your content should provide your fans with something of value with only 20% slated for promotion of your business.
We know that social media is about relationships first.
But the truth is, once you’ve built a solid relationship with your customers, you can use this connection to help you grow your business. This doesn’t mean shoving a sales message down their throats or putting sales above the relationship.
It simply means you can and should promote what you offer to your loyal customers who believe in your product and services.
Too many companies spend way too much time promoting themselves and not listening to the needs of their clients. Content like this will only get your foot in the door. Constant self promotion will cause people to start tuning you out and eventually, they’ll stop following and listening to you.
When we look at our content breakdown like this: 70% of your content should inform, educate and provide value to your fans. The next 20% is to promote your business, list your special deals for your fans and cool ways for them to get some free stuff.
The last 10% is something I call Entertainment. I’m not talking about the latest celebrity scandal or what’s going on with the Kardashians. Entertainment is a way for your company to show its personality and what makes your business unique.
Entertainment could be anything from inspirational quotes to funny videos. It’s something to give your customers a little smile and connect them to you on a personal level. Who couldn’t use a good chuckle during the work day?
Once you start developing your content calendar, you’ll see more than just hours added to your day. Having a clear plan for your marketing efforts will give you more time to engage with your customers.
You’ll find that you’ll have more time to listen to your fans. The more you hear what they are saying, the more you’ll see how your products can solve their problems.
The Sharing Content Question
When I tell my coaching clients to share other company’s content, a strange look comes over their faces. And then I get the question, “But won’t I be telling my customers about other companies for them to buy from instead of me?”
My answer is always, “You can look at it that way but don’t you think that they might find this on their own with a Google search? So wouldn’t it be cool if they got this valuable information that could help them from YOU?”
Many small business owners worry that if they share content to their customers from another company – especially one they consider competition – that they’ll lose their next sale.
Truth is, if your customers move on to another company then they just weren’t a good fit for you anyway. If you’re losing sales to another company, there’s probably something else going on with your marketing or your offers themselves. { But that’s a post for another day and another time. }
Trust me when I say this – there are enough customers out there for everyone. Sharing another company’s content will not mean that you’ll lose your customers to them and not make your sales goals for the month.
Become a Trusted Resource
When you share others’ content by posting links to their blog posts or articles, hitting the share button on Facebook or retweeting on Twitter, you give your fans the chance to learn about the great information that you’ve found.
Your followers will start to bookmark your Facebook fan page, Pinterest board or Twitter account as a place for them to check in on a regular basis. They’ll add your social sites into their weekly reading as they’ll know they’ll find information to help them learn something new or give them advice on how to make their lives easier.
I want my fans to click on my Facebook page when they log into the program to see what new content I’ve posted and not just because they saw a post somewhere down the end of their news feed.
How Does This Content Sharing Stuff Work?
The first step to sharing content is start doing something I call Research Reading.
If you’re not reading every week about what’s going on in your industry then let me be the first to slap you on the hand and say, “Shame on you.” There’s nothing better to help you grow your business than to stay on top of the latest news and industry trends.
How can you give your customers the best product if you don’t know what’s new and how this information can help them?
Think about how to schedule time in your week to do some research online. Maybe it’s in the morning with your coffee, lunchtime when you take a break or later at night when you’re multi-tasking between watching TV and checking Facebook or Pinterest.
Figure out the best time that works for your schedule and try to do some research reading at least 3 – 4 times a week. And then schedule it in your calendar even if it’s first thing in the morning with your cup of coffee or your lunch break.
I find the best time for me to do my research reading is at the end of the day when I’m multi-tasking between watching TV and going online with my tablet. I read articles in commercial breaks and run searches during those moments when the show has lost my interest.
The next step takes you back to a post I wrote about Content Planning – if you didn’t read it before, read through my version of how to create a content strategy that works for you.
The content you’re going to share will fall under that 70% part I mentioned earlier in this post. This is the stuff that brings your fans to actively click over to your page.
Your goal is to share only valuable content. When you’re deciding which post to share, ask yourself these questions:
- Will this post help your fans in some way?
- Will this information give them the steps to make something easier?
- Does this post teach them a new way to use your products or service?
Sharing content from another business is more than just saving you time. It builds a trusted relationship with your connections and reminds them why they followed you in the first place.
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