Don’t panic – here is our guide to social posting

Say the words “social posting” and for some business people you can see the panic in their eyes or hear their voices start to quiver! To them these are taboo words that they just want to avoid or pass on to someone else to do!

Yes I guess the truth is that with anything new it is always frightening to start with, but the good news about social media and social postings is that you will overcome your fear with just a little bit of practice.  The one thing to remember in all this is to not take it personally if no one likes or comments on your blogs, doesn’t re-tweet your tweets or love your Instagram photos.  It is a busy world and with around 1.3 billion people registered on twitter alone it is no wonder your tweets disappear as soon as they are posted. But the good news is that every time you make some noise through social media you are promoting yourself and the results will pay off.

Below are a few tips to get any first time bloggers, tweeters and instagramers started:

• Have a look at your competitors; see what they are doing with their social media, what topics are they writing about, or tweeting etc.
• Take small steps to begin with. Set yourself a goal of one blog a month, a few tweets a week and a few photos on Instagram.  Setting yourself easy goals will get you started which is more important than doing nothing at all.
• Look at your staff, do you think any of them have the capability to write blogs for you. Do you think they may do a better job of sending out social messages?

Online you can find plenty of tools to help you write your blogs if writing isn’t your strong point.  Try to make your blogs interesting, without being too word heavy or with too much technology jargon.  To have impact today you need to get around 500 words on each piece of content, plus adding a photo or video all adds to the social experience for your readers.  The added bonus of when you write a blog is you can then send it out on the various social media channels afterwards, so you are killing two birds with one stone so to speak.

After a while you will more than likely find that you can keep your customers and potential customer’s up to date quicker using social media than producing a yearly newsletter or emailing all your clients.  By posting socially your customers can ask questions then and there if they want to ask you anything they want more info on.  Also if you have a last minute sale you can reach a wider audience with the stock you want to move much quicker than waiting for them to visit your website.

As I mentioned earlier it is like anything new, the more you do it the better and more confident you will become.  So what better day than today to get started!