When the clock strikes 12 at the end of each year, we each end up doing two things: reflecting on the year we just left behind and trying to come up with changes we can make in this new year. Although it’s easy to pinpoint personal goals, business owners struggle to see the big picture when it comes to accomplishing social media growth.

One obvious point of growth is the reach your company has, meaning how many people know about you and your company. Whether your main referral service is word-of-mouth or social media, here are 7 tips that can help you reach your goals.

Social Media Marketing Resolutions for 2019

Know Your Audience
Every company should know the answer to this critical question: Who are you communicating to? Every business owner needs to know the demographics of his or her clientele in order to communicate his or her message appropriately. For example, if your non-profit organization is looking for donors, chances are that you are not going to be reaching out to college students on Facebook or Instagram. You would want to reach people who are financially able to contribute to your organization or companies who are able to donate time or resources to your organization.

Being aware of your audience is the first step. Once you identify who you want to talk to, you need to plan what you are going to say. Making sure that content on your social media, print, and website are geared to the audience you need to reach will make your message all the more effective.

Measure Your Communication
Now you have the followers, but how do you keep them? One big mistake that a business makes in communicating with their followers on social media or email campaigns is the amount they communicate. This mistake can be made as over-communication or under-communication.

Over-communication becomes a problem because followers may lose interest, and tend to unfollow businesses that spam them or flood their feed with information. In contrast, under-communication can make your organization irrelevant, also causing unfollows because not enough information is being communicated.

Our general rule is to have 1 post per day, or every other day! Depending on what you need to communicate, or how much content you have to communicate, find the right amount of communication for you!

Personalize Your Interactions
Now that social media has been around for such a long time, people forget what the purpose of social media is: to create and maintain relationships from afar. This intention has strayed over the years to the point where many organizations and influencers on social media are using programs, or robots, who follow and unfollow random people in hopes that those people will follow them back. Why would someone do this? To gain followers.

What people don’t realize about this tactic in gaining followers is that none of the followers are organic, meaning the retention of these followers is little to none when using robots. People don’t realize that following others just to unfollow them says a lot about your motives, which are that you only care about what people think about you and not the other way around. Not to mention that social media platforms are doing away with fake accounts and robots, so these methods in gaining followers will soon be obsolete!

So, how do you remedy this? Follow people who you may actually gain a connection with. This might include someone who has a similar organization or message that you are trying to tell the world about, or it could be someone who follows other businesses that are similar to yours. These kind of following are mutually beneficial and have a higher retention rate.

Relationships vs Transaction
Social media should be a place to build and sustain relationships, not a place to solicit. Every person is relationship driven – we crave developing relationships, whether it is to a few close people or to the masses. With that being said, cultivating your relationships rather than soliciting your relationships makes your interactions on social media more meaningful.

A great way to think about it is to model your social media relationships after your personal interactions. Think about it. If you are constantly asking a friend to do things for you, without ever seeking out their needs, will they be likely to stick around? Probably not. A great way to avoid soliciting your followers is by recognizing your stakeholders. You can do this by doing something as small as responding to comments, or as large as creating a post just to thank your employees, sponsors, volunteers, followers, etc.

Creating A Plan
The bread and butter of Out of Dust Marketing and Communication are our Social Media Marketing Plans. Why are these so important? They make everything you do on social media intentional. Essentially a Social Media Marketing Plan encompasses the mission and vision of your organization and plans how best to communicate with your intended audience. In your plan, we dictate what to post, when to post, and where to post it.

Review Analytics
A large part of ringing in the new year is reflection. Reflecting on the past year is the only way to set accurate goals for the following year. The same process applies to social media communication and planning. In order to gain new followers and properly reach your current followers is by setting up tools to review data. By reviewing data, you can find what content performs the best, how many people are you reaching, how many people are engaged, who visits your website, and what days and times are best for YOUR accounts.

By setting up tools to review and analyze this data, you can accurately come up with a plan to either change some trends or to enhance what has been successful.

Looking for a Social Media Company in Jacksonville, Fl?

Our goal is to make your social media platforms work for you, no matter your company goals. From promotions and announcements to photo slideshows and questions, we know how to attract and engage with an audience that bring you a ROI.

Our team at Out of Dusk Marketing is passionate about coming up with social media solutions that focus on simplicity, practicality, and impact. To get started, visit our contact page or call us at 904-775-2957. Meet your future customers on social media platforms now!