If you’re an office administrator for a small company, one of your responsibilities may be keeping your company’s social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.) up-to-date. After all, a majority of businesses now (whether large or small) must have a social media presence to stay relevant. Here are some tips to assist you with this! It’s not scary, I promise.

Develop a strategy

Remember to do your homework! Which specific social media channels would be relevant for your business? What is your target audience? B2B? B2C? You may have multiple audiences. Define your key messages for each specific audience and set up a schedule (daily, once a week, biweekly, etc.) to update the social media sites you manage with any relevant or new information. For your business, it may not be necessary to have a Facebook, Twitter, and a LinkedIn page, for example. Perhaps only one of those is necessary. That all depends on your target audience and how much you want to promote your company.

How to create engaging content

Content is your core for having a successful social media strategy. Set up a process for organizing and aggregating quality content that provides value to your audience. Add the content to your editorial calendar, and you can share it when you’re ready. Here are a few tips to develop high quality content.

• Develop “snackable” pieces of content – short and sweet
• If you have time to develop short videos (less than 2 minutes) – DO it! Although text is fine, cool video content is the future
• Include a call to action or question in your posts to promote interactivity with your target audience

Facebook

• Use short, fun-to-read text and eye-catching images to get attention
• When your post is published, you can bring more attention to it by embedding it to your website
• Use posts to make special offers to your customers, invite them to events or let them know about special milestones your business has achieved, like an anniversary

Instagram

• Tell a story with images
  • Balance fun images with business images
  • Don’t forget to create/use videos!
• Cultivate a following
  • Use relevant, popular hashtags
  • Connect to your Facebook account (if you have one)
  • Engage others by liking their photos and follow your followers

Twitter

• Keep it short (140 characters or less)
• Use visuals
• Incorporate relevant hashtags
• Ask questions or run polls
• Connect with retweets and replies

LinkedIn

• Establish your company’s presence through using descriptive language that helps readers understand your company’s vision, purpose and value
  • Showcase your products and services
  • Use video
• Attract followers through employee engagement and announcing the page to customers and partners. You can even add a “follow” button to your company website leading them to your LinkedIn page

Don’t forget to listen and interact!

Remember, social media conversations are happening all around you in real time. Social listening is an excellent tactic to monitor what people are saying about your brand. Respond to comments, mentions and feedback, even if they’re negative. You will want to turn that negative into a positive! For example, Mention app monitors the web, including the major social media channels, and tells you every time somebody mentions your name, brand or target keywords.

So, get into it and be social! Have fun! Keep up with developing cool content, posting, listening, and repeating! Your business will thank you for it.