Today we are talking about how to get ready for the year. We are going to discuss how to get started or how to restart if you’ve had some dead time. 

 

Get Over Yourself

 

The first thing you need to do is take a deep breath and get over yourself. You haven’t posted. It’s ok. Nobody needs a long apology. I don’t need to know that your friend’s sister’s hamster had a horrible accident and that’s where you’ve been. I don’t need to know. It’s totally ok. You don’t owe anybody an apology. Things happen in life and that’s fine. Just jump back in there. Some people may not even notice you’ve been gone so don’t point it out to them. If someone does ask you where you’ve been you have the right to tell them or not. It’s up to your discretion. It’s ok to say, “I had some downtime.” That’s it. 

 

Analyze and See What Worked Best for You Before

Examine your analytics and see what was getting results before. See which platform they responded to you on. Where did you get the biggest bang for your buck? I hate to say this but Pinterest is in trouble. This last season the numbers weren’t nearly as high as they usually are. For retailers, they were still pretty high, but for service providers, they were way down. 

 

Now if you’re just getting started, go ahead and jump in. Then, you can check your analytics after 30, 60, and 90 days to see the trends. You still need to know what works and what your best platform is. It’s going to be hard to do that until you have some numbers to look at. 

 

Pick a Platform

Now that you’re back in it, pick a platform. Make sure you are on the right platforms for your business. For instance, if you look at your analytics and see that Pinterest isn’t reaping the same benefits as it did for you last year, it may be time to bench it and try something more effective. Maybe it’s time to look at TikTok. How are your Instagram reels performing? If you get great engagement with reels, TikTok may be a viable option for you. 

 

If Facebook isn’t performing as well, you probably still should maintain a presence there. Because it is such a huge platform and everyone is there, even if you’re not getting engagement people will still be using Facebook to look you up and decide if they want to do business with you. However, most business owners can’t really do more than 2 or 3 platforms consistently so make sure the others are going to give you the results you are looking for. Analytics will help you do that and if you are brand new then use your audience to determine which platforms suit you best. Where are the people that are looking for your product or service?

 

Update and Verify

 

Check out all your information online and make sure it’s current and correct. That includes your bio, about me, and URLs. Take a look at your graphics. When is the last time you updated your Facebook cover photo? You need a clear, concise message across all platforms. If you’re going to be anitaselltea on Instagram then you need to be that on Facebook. Not teafromanita. You’re making it harder for people to find you which is the opposite of why you’re on social media to begin with. 

 

An important tip is to make sure your call to action is consistent. If you’re not going to answer your phone, your call to action shouldn’t be “call me”. It should be “message me” or “send me an email”. Whatever method you are actually going to regularly check should be your call to action. For more tips on performing a self-audit of your social media check out THIS BLOG.

 

Create a Content Calendar

 

Please do this. You will absolutely streamline your life if you have a content calendar. You need a 2-week rotation for your social media so you don’t have to wake up every single day and wonder what to post. That’s exhausting and leads to inconsistency. It also keeps you from repeating the same information. I mean, humor is great but if you’re a real estate agent you don’t want to post a meme everyday. Even though brands are leaning into memes more than they ever have in the past, you still can’t do it every day. 

 

Create Content and Schedule Your Posts

 

Now we are to the part where you have to actually do it. No one wants to spend time every day manually posting to all their platforms. It’s much easier to take an hour at the start of the week and schedule all of your posts to automatically post. Then all you have to do is monitor them for engagement. 

 

I’d even recommend scheduling a live because once you do that there is no backing out of it. When you announce to the world that you’ll be live at 10 am on Wednesday, it’s on. 

 

Get Everyone Involved

There is no I in tweet. If you have a team they need to all be involved. We see great engagement on LinkedIn when the entire team participates. How can they be involved? They can watch your videos, they can like your posts, and they can even share them. If you are a solopreneur you have vendors that you can support and have them support you. Liking a post is free. Watching a 30-second video doesn’t cost you a thing. That’s a great way to support and engage your team and it really helps your stats. 

 

Listen to Your Audience

 

Find out what your current clients and past clients want. What do they want to know? What are they interested in? Recently I asked a group of our clients what they were interested in learning and Google My Business was at the top of their list. They had lots of questions. Google My Business wasn’t even on my radar. I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t asked. 

 

If you’re new and don’t have clients yet, ask people that you think would be potential clients. It’s easy to get in your own way by assuming what a client will want is one thing when really, if you were to ask, it’s a completely different thing. Make sure you’re giving them what they really need and the best way to do that is to ask questions. 

 

On the other side of that, when you listen to a potential client you will sometimes realize you aren’t a great fit for them and that’s ok too. It’s better to know from the beginning and be upfront with someone than to be in an unsuccessful working relationship. Not everyone is a good fit for you. You can find out by listening.

 

Schedule the Time to Do This

These are great steps to follow but if you don’t schedule time to do it’s not going to magically happen. It’s easy to get busy in your regular life and decide you don’t have time to do this. Social U can do it for you if that’s something that you need. However, if you’re going to do it yourself, you have to schedule time for it. If you know your best chance of getting it done is Monday at 2 pm, put 2-4 pm on Mondays on your schedule as social media time and use it to create your content and schedule it out. Do what works for you.

 

Get At It

 

Now that you have the steps to get started (or restarted), all that’s left is to just do it. Need help? Give us a call.