Social media is one of the most powerful tools in a marketer’s arsenal. And how could it not be when almost 4 billion people have accounts on nearly a dozen social media platforms. That’s 4 million people you can reach and 4 billion potential customers.
Now, while that last statement might be a bit of an exaggeration, the fact that social media is an invaluable tool for any business is well-proven.
All the best brands and the biggest businesses have a strong social media following and are often on several platforms with multiple accounts on each.
However, that does sound a bit daunting. Managing dozens of accounts with tens of thousands of followers sounds like a monumental undertaking, not possible without a large team overseeing every aspect of your social media strategy.
But it doesn’t have to be. Take a look at these few tips we’ve outlined in this article, and you’ll be able to stay on top of your many social media accounts even without the help of a highly-trained, substantial team of marketers.
Benefits of Running Multiple Accounts
Before we dive into our tips and tricks, let’s discuss some of the benefits of social media in business.
We already mentioned that more than half of the world’s population has a social media account. And with newer generations coming in, people who grew up with the Internet, it’s a given that this number will increase in the coming years.
Thus, social media has become the best and the most efficient way of reaching a broad audience. And people share that sentiment – social media is their preferred way of talking to their brands, voicing their praises and concerns.
Not only that, but a vast majority of customers, especially those belonging to the GenZ and Millennial demographic, use social media to gather information about products. Nearly 50% of them said that browsing their social platforms is better to do research than online searches.
The most significant benefit of using social media as your marketing strategy is that you get a lot of exposure. Getting yourself out there and getting the word out to your potential customers is the pebble that will start that avalanche of customers you need to succeed.
From exposure comes another benefit of using social platforms – brand and community building.
As we mentioned above, the best businesses use social media to garner a strong following. This allows them to talk to their customers directly and address any issues they might have with their services or products.
But building a community has another benefit. Essentially, using social media is the digital equivalent of word-of-mouth marketing. If you’ve got a strong community, they’re likely to spread the word about your products themselves, thus acting as votes of confidence for your business.
These two benefits are the main reasons to run a social media marketing strategy across multiple platforms.
The advantages of forming a community and gaining all that exposure are enormous. The expected ROI from using a social media strategy is through the roof, and, in 2021, social network advertising revenue in the US will hit a number greater than 50 billion dollars. If that doesn’t convince you to put your strategy in place, nothing will!
Hurdles to Face when Running Multiple Accounts
The benefits of using social media marketing strategies are great, but there are some hurdles you’ll need to overcome to realize it.
First and foremost, you’ll often run into the problem of consistency. Constantly churning out quality content adapted for multiple platforms is no easy feat. It takes time and effort to research, create, and distribute that content.
Secondly, you also run the risk of spreading yourself too thin. Having too many accounts can confuse your followers, and you’ll need to work extra hard to keep a uniform showing across multiple platforms and multiple accounts.
Finally, there is the workload itself. While you can manage a few accounts on two, three, or even four platforms on your own or with a small team, as your business grows, so will the demand for content.
Soon, you’ll find yourself overwhelmed and not able to keep up. So you’ll either have to cut down on the workload or expand your team at that point.
Tips for Creating an Effective Social Media Marketing Strategy
Now that we’ve got all that out of the way let’s discuss what you came here for – tips for creating an effective strategy.
Create a Plan and Document Your Strategy
The first thing you need to do before creating a social media marketing strategy is form a plan. Without a clear and concise plan, you’ll likely run into trouble at the onset of your venture.
If you start posting randomly, you’ll soon find it hard to track what you’ve done and which avenues you’ve explored, which can lead to duplicate or inconsistent content.
Now, your plan of action is going to depend on several factors. First, you need to ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve with your strategy. Is it product promotion? Are you looking to create a community? Open a customer support channel?
Second, you need to create a target audience. You can cast as wide a net as possible and target everyone, but not everyone will be interested in your product. Therefore, make sure you research your target audience and focus primarily on them for the best results.
Targeting a niche also determines which platforms you should focus on as well.
Certain types of people frequent specific platforms – B2B people usually frequent LinkedIn, fashion and cosmetics enthusiasts might favor Instagram, and almost everyone uses Facebook.
Finally, you need to document your strategy. Digital Agency Services emphasizes documentation and data analytics, as it helps you track the progress of your strategy, observe it in action, and make adjustments for the future.
Post Regularly and Post with Quality in Mind
Content is king – there’s no denying it. If the content you’re posting is not engaging, then it’s not going to do very well, and you need to do more research on what engages people and how to create content that commands attention.
However, often not enough to do a few quality posts and leave it at that. People demand quality content regularly – otherwise, you’ll be deemed unprofessional and uncaring.
With that said, forming a posting schedule is a must. Prudent marketers have several pieces of content prepared in advance and a clear timeframe when that content goes live.
Fortunately, you won’t handle all that work by yourself. Plenty of applications features comprehensive dashboards that unify automation, analytics, content curation, and planning.
Hootsuite is one of the best such apps that come to mind. It allows automated posting of up to 350 posts across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest. Buffer is another – it’s compatible with all the platforms mentioned above, and it enables both automation and analytics, all wrapped up in one neat little package.
Engage with Your Audience and Make Use of User-Generated Content
When creating your strategy, don’t forget to put the “social” in your social marketing.
What we mean by this is – to engage with your audience. One of the worst things you can do is push content but neglect the feedback.
After all, the whole point of creating content is to open a discussion with the audience. People are very vocal, and they’ll immediately let you know when you’re doing something right and when you’re doing something wrong. Use the former to further promote your brand and the latter to improve what needs improvement.
One of the best ways to engage with your audience is to use user-generated content. Most marketers agree (93% of them) that user-generated content often performs better than its brand-created counterpart.
However, be careful not to steal that content. Plagiarism is a huge no-no. Instead, think about collaborating with other independent content creators. Creating content for you is yet another vote of confidence for you, which, again, loops back to that word-of-mouth thing we mentioned earlier.
Wrapping Up
And with that, we’re going to put a pin in our article on handling multiple social media accounts. We’re not going to lie – it’s not easy putting a social media marketing strategy into place. It takes a lot of planning and time to implement a strategy and reap the rewards.
However, the keywords here are consistency and persistence. Posting consistently high-quality content curated for your chosen platforms and accounts shows your professionalism and determination to reach out to your audience and make them a part of the process. If you do that, your audience is sure to respond.
Finally, social media marketing is all about being persistent. You might not get the desired results immediately, but that doesn’t mean you should give up. It takes time to get noticed, but once things start rolling, as we said, it only takes a pebble to start an avalanche.