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7 point social media checklist every marketer should follow



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7 point social media checklist every marketer should follow

It's no mystery that over 90% of businesses out there are working on their own social media as part of their marketing campaign.  It's also no mystery that every entrepreneur is getting into social media as well.  But why are so many people getting into social media marketing and not focusing on other sectors that will also bring in sales?  Well that's because social media marketing gets you directly linked with the potential client and you're not just putting an ad in front of them which will likely get glanced over and never seen again. 

With social media marketing you can be in contact with a potential buyer the entire time they are thinking about buying, and not just posting an ad and hoping they decide to make a purchase.

There are a lot of social media platforms out there, and some are better than others depending on your target demographic.  LinkedIn is great for B2B while twitter is good for targeting the younger generations and Instagram is good if you're targeting a wide variety of age groups.  Facebook of course is good for all of the demographics since you can get super targeted if you want 7 point social media checklist every marketer should follow

Below I will go over my 7 point social media checklist every marketer should follow



1. Pick your main platform
This means that you should pick the social media platform that will get you the biggest return for your time, or money, invested into your social media marketing.  You don't want to pick twitter if you're trying to market to businesses, you would want to go with LinkedIn since the majority of people there are business owners or decision makers.  You wouldn't want to go with Pinterest if you were trying to target the younger generation because the majority of people there are over 25 years old according to most studies.

Of course you can pick any platform you're familiar with and be successful, but picking the one you like and not what your target market likes, will usually return in less profits and sales compared to the right platform.

If you're unsure of what platform to choose, you're always safe with Facebook.  You can set up some simple ads that are super targeted and you can usually bring in a few sales here and there with it 7 point social media checklist every marketer should follow


2. Don't work on every platform
Sure, you can set up all your platforms and post to them, but you can't treat them all like your primary platform because you will burn out pretty quickly.  I do urge you to set up your profiles on every platform you can just so you don't get your name or domain name stolen and have someone try to sell it to you later on down the road.  But you don't have to be posting to all of your platforms every day.

If you hired a social media manager then I would say they could manage every page for you on each social media platform, but if you're just starting out, this likely is not an option at the moment.

You can always interlink some of your accounts and have them cross post, but you can't usually do this with all of your social media accounts unless you're using something like hootsuite.

You can always have secondary platforms that you post to regularly, but you will always have that main one you go to when you want to get the news out about something you're selling or updating.


3. Always be networking
Have you ever heard the saying "Always be prospecting"?  Well that is basically the same thing you'll be doing.  You will always want to be networking on your main social media channels because you never know who will be your next paying client 7 point social media checklist every marketer should follow

LinkedIn and Facebook are great platforms for this.  LinkedIn is good because you can get in front of the actual business owner and pitch them a service or product while avoiding the dreaded gatekeeper assistant.  Facebook is good because you can request to join closed groups, and once accepted, you have access to plenty of people who are probably interested in what you're offering.  You can't spam though, you have to just post regularly and drop bread crumbs so people can get interested in you 7 point social media checklist every marketer should follow


4. Be an Influencer even if you're just starting out
People will always listen to someone who is an industry expert, so you will need to come off as one in order to be taken seriously.  You may not have the following of some of the big wigs in your niche, but you can fight toe to toe with them on social media because it lets even the little fish become great big whales 7 point social media checklist every marketer should follow

A few ways you can come off as an influencer:

  1. When you're in a group, you can answer any questions with detailed answers.  This will make it seem as if you know everything within your niche and people will take you seriously.
  2. Re-publishing your own content on platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook so that people can see it. 
  3. Commenting on the current influencers posts and showing that you know the same information and can go head to head with them if needed.

Doing one or all of these will get your name out there and show people that you know your industry very well.  People will begin to follow you for updates and more information down the road 7 point social media checklist every marketer should follow


5. Accumulate Social Proof
When it comes to people making a decision, they will usually check out social media or reviews in order to purchase a service or product.  It's the same with every niche online, you will need some positive words from random people in order to convince others to pay you.

Now this isn't so difficult because your customers will usually be pretty happy and leave you a review.  You can simply ask them to post something on Yelp, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. in order for you to be seen in a better light by random people 7 point social media checklist every marketer should follow

With just a simple "I love this company.  They did such a great job!" is enough to turn a person who was on the fence into a lifetime customer. 


6. Professional Images
You won't want to open up MS paint and make the images you're going to be posting on your social media accounts.  If you want to be seen as a professional, you need professional images. 

Now I'm not saying that you need to hire a photographer for every single image you want to post.  I'm saying that you need to find a nice stock photo company like billionphotos.com and also get handy with Photoshop or something else that allows you to edit images.  Now I'm sure that's pretty intimidating to some people because the unknown is scary, but don't worry.  You can watch a few YouTube videos and get the basics of Photoshop down pat in order to edit anything you want 7 point social media checklist every marketer should follow  It should only take an hour or two to learn what you need to in order to merge or customize your images to be seen as a professional 7 point social media checklist every marketer should follow


7. Be active and consistent
No one will see you as a leader in your industry if you go inactive.  You need to stay on top of your posts and that means you need to publish something at least once a week.  Now you can go the hootsuite route and schedule dozens of posts to go out when you want them, but you're going to be slightly disconnected when it comes to posting.  You sometimes won't remember what you scheduled and you'll have to read it over before answering any questions that come in.

The more you're posting, the more likely you'll increase your audience.  This is because people will find you once or twice and follow you for more updates.  The more content you have going through your social media profiles, the more likely you'll increase your followers 7 point social media checklist every marketer should follow



In conclusion:
In today's world we all need social media marketing.  You could be a mom and pop shop selling baskets or a tech leader, you will always need social media in order to grow a presence online and there's no way around it lol.  Set up your accounts, figure out which ones are your primary and secondaries, then get to posting.  If one account isn't performing how you want it to, figure out if it's the platform or just your content and fix it.



Remember to follow me!
https://www.seoclerks.com/user/Razzy


Thanks!

Razzy

Comments

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cmoneyspinner
As usual, you always supply good advice.

That Number 1 tip ~ Picking your main platform is SUPER HARD TO DO!! It's because I'm having good results with the major social media networks. (Finally! It sure didn't happen overnight!)

That final tip ~ Stay consistent and active. Thanks to many automated tools that help with posting to your social media I have been able to keep up. I am currently testing the Tailwind app to help me with my Pinterest posting.

Whatever you decide for 2018, you can't ignore your social media marketing strategy.

Great checklist!



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Corzhens
Staying consistent and active in social media is the only way to maintain your position regarding your connections. When I would not post for a week, some of my friends would message me on the reason because they thought something was wrong. I am only posting once or twice a week and maybe 3 times at the most. What more if I am posting every day then the people who are following me may be worried.



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Tronia
The biggest mistake that I see is when people just start out with the social media marketing is that they try to focus on too many platforms.

They think they can handle it and that it is easy but often they get overwhelmed.

The best thing is definitely to first pick the main platform like you have said and then later on expand out to other platforms.



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Judas2018
Twitter and Facebook are the main social media platforms all businesses should be on. After that I'd say Pinterest and maybe Instagram.



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augusta
Using the social media to one advantage especially in marketing needs one to be very active and consistent.Personally, I wouldn't take any account or handle serious if the person handle isn't also serious.The person will be offline for 4-5 days then how does one get to meet you for good business dealings.Yes, it good one has one main account or platform that is the primary platform so that one can pretty much run it better.Social media platform is one platform if handled properly can give one good leverage and tons of money but one must conforms to some tenets to achieve.



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Everett
All great points. I have an issue with one point, and it irks me to no end.. here it is:

6. Professional Images
A lot of the times people will just Google images and pick from whatever their keywords are. This can definitely be an issue because you never know if the website that hosts the image copyrighted the image, or if the image is trademarked.

A lot of the times I see people using stock photos with the watermark and everything. This is very bad. They do not know that those images are to be bought and not used in such fashion which is why the watermark the exists on the image.

A good thing to do when you are posting images is to make the image background the same color of the icon or another image. For instance, if you ever saw the social media icons, they are usually white with the main color of the website. It is best practice to do create an image like this.

This is better because not only are you not infringing on trademarks or copyright but you actually created the image yourself. You will have a sense of accomplishment and the brand you are trying to promote will look more professional. I rather view an image someone created than one that was found via a search engine.



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Judas2018
I don't get the stock photo attitude either. If you want the image that bad just buy it. To use an image with a huge watermark plastered across the front just shows a lack of self-awareness.



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ameliadavies
I have been in Sales and Marketing field since the last four years and I can totally relate with whatever you have shared.
Focus should be given on mainly 3 platforms,i.e, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Other than this ,you can use Instagram as well.



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Baburra
These really are the big names that you need to use now if you want to succeed in the online market. I think depending on what you are selling, one can prove to be a better use of your time and effort than the others so it might be good to focus on one and just have the others as supplements, but ultimately it will b one of these four, definitely. I think Instagram has been dominating a lot this year so it's a good one to pick up.



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overcast
This is indeed a good checklist. And there are plenty of good things to learn from here. I have noticed that some of the time social media marketers end up copying the videos from the youtube. And that is something that needs to be stopped. Lot of social media managers are going for the false growth. And that needs to be checked in such case. I have seen that can be different for each one of the marketer who is working on such things.



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vhinz
Using professional images is one of my problems in creating my content because I don't have much budget for purchasing high-quality images. I usually us photos from websites that offer free images. Of course, you cannot expect really good quality when you use free images. When using images, I make it use that I know the attributes I need to give to the author of the image before I use it on my content.



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Corzhens
I think being an influencer is one great way that a marketer should be. However, it is not that easy because you need time to build up your reputation. Maybe readers will notice your expertise in something when they get to read your content often, say 50 times or more. Publishing a perfect write up 5 times is not proof that you can be an influencer, you need more than that. But when you get to be an influencer then things will flow smoothly in your favor.



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vinaya
Choosing the right platform helps. I was on reddit once. They say reddit can give you massive traffic, However, reddit did not work for me. Therefore, I left reddit and instead began focusing on the platforms that gave good results for me.
I have acounts on many platforms, however, I am focusing only on handful of sites like facebook, twitter, linkedin, google plus and pinterest.



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kgord
I think that is great advice, however, I do see issues with trying to become an influencer right off the bat. I just think it is hard to be taken seriously, and looked at if you have something to say when no one knows who you are.



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jaymish2
Great tips. My main avenue of marketing is social media. I market mainly on Pinterest and I was just wondering whether to try also Facebook and Instagram. This has answered my question. I have heard that Tumbir is the best platform to be an influencer. I also think that your images are the main selling point on social media.



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