Developing a Social Media Strategy That Works

Developing a Social Media Strategy That Works

When it comes to developing a social media strategy that works for your business or healthcare practice, how do you know where to start? As a small business owner, you likely have many things keeping you busy during the course of the day. Developing content, taking pictures, creating video, liking, commenting and sharing on social media probably isn’t among the priorities in your day.

Investing time in a social media strategy can go a long way in attracting customers, patients or your ideal client to your business. With ever-evolving social media platforms, it can also be difficult to keep up with the changes on knowing how to post content that will be seen by your intended audience. Regardless of the platform, there are three key components to developing a social media strategy that works for your business:

To get your small business seen on social media today, you have to:

• Pay to play
• Know the rules
• Choose wisely

Pay To Play

We all knew that Facebook could not stay free forever. With over 2 billion users monthly, Facebook has become a prime advertising space for large and small businesses alike. While it is of course free to end users or anyone wanting to sign-up, Facebook is certainly taking advantage of their widespread reach by encouraging business pages to advertise to get their posts seen.

The organic reach of business pages on Facebook is declining daily. On average, 1-2% of your business page’s followers see each post. And if you don’t know the correct content to post, that 1-2% quickly declines. Now if a business page wants to get their posts seen, they have to “pay to play.”

If you are a small business with a small advertising budget, there is good news. If you can start out with $1 a day, that will go a long way towards getting your business seen on Facebook.

Know The Rules

Another step towards developing a social media strategy that works for your small business, is to know the rules of the platform you are on. Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or any other, no two platforms are created alike.

Each platform has a specific set of both written and unwritten rules. Following these rules and knowing what kind of results each platform is best for producing, will help you in your social media strategy.

Here are some things to consider when posting to each platform:

Facebook: Best for reaching people where they are and communicating via pictures and Facebook video

Twitter: Best for clear, concise thoughts and posts. Relies heavily on the use of hashtags

Instagram: Best for beautiful, curated content that is visually appealing

LinkedIn: Best for professional/career use and/or publishing long form articles to position yourself as an expert in your field

Choose Wisely

When you are first beginning to develop your social media strategy, don’t start with the idea that you have to jump on every platform that there is and create an account. The tip here is to choose wisely. Not every business needs to be on every platform.

Use the platform tips above to help you determine objectives for your business and your social media strategy. Pick one or two and start there. Over time you can begin to develop or add other platforms as your audience, goals or objectives evolve or change.

If you need help in developing a social media strategy that works for your small business or your healthcare practice, schedule a strategy session with us today.