The year is fast coming to a close and there is no time like the present to look at your social media strategy — what worked, what didn’t in 2015 — and to put your 2016 strategy in place so that when the first of the year rolls around you are ready to meet it full on.
What can you do now, today, to get your social media strategy up and running for 2016? Here are some steps you should take.
Do an audit of your 2015 efforts. Where did you start, where did you end up? What worked? What did you try that didn’t work? If something didn’t work or perform at the level you anticipated, what can you change to assure it will either work better in 2016 or let you know the idea should be scrapped?
Set your sights for 2016 and take steps to meet them. Take your bigger goals for the upcoming year and break them down into manageable monthly, weekly and even daily steps to help you attain them. If you know you want to increase your social followers by X number, first you need to know why you want to do that (this will help you formulate the strategy) and then make note of what you can do to help you reach those numbers. Without a written goal and a plan of action, it’s all just talk.
Ask a friend to look at your blog, your website and your social media shares and she if he or she can truly get a feeling for who you are and what your business does. Is your message clear? Could a potential client truly tell whether you could help them? Do they have to wade through extraneous information to get to the essence of what your business services are? Hint, they shouldn’t have to. Make it easy. Share your business story. Let a potential client know, up front, how you can address their pain points.
Make friends with automation. So many of our daily tasks can be automated. Take advantage of these technologies such as email auto-responders and social media scheduling technology and then use them to make your daily life easier.
Don’t be afraid to be flexible. Just because you’ve written an overarching goal for the year doesn’t mean you need to wait until the end of the year to see if it’s working. You need to build flexibility into your scheduling and make adjustments mid-stream if necessary.
There is no time like the present to begin your review of your 2015 efforts and put your plans in place for 2016.