Social Media New Year’s Resolutions

Revamp your social media strategy with these easy updates and simple amendments to your working day…

1. Get on Google+

Google+ is without a doubt the next big thing in social media. Despite its lacklustre start, the site, which launched in 2011, is gaining a mass following, with as many as 400million users. With a cheeky share here, and a +1 there, Google+ has slowly crept up on us, and is now one of the most used social networks on the internet. Last week Google announced that you can email your Google+ contacts without needing to know their email addresses – this is just one more reason why you must get on G+!

Click here to read how Google+ will help SEO visability.

2. Work smart – not hard

Don’t labour over your newsfeed for hours, getting distracted by The Mail Online and #OneDirection. It’s much better to stay on-point by dedicating 30 mins, three times a day, to update your accounts. Make the most of your time online by posting at the peak times when your users will be active – there is no point posting during the day if your audience works nights! Use a scheduling tool like Hootsuite to make your life easier. And make every post, tweet and status count by researching relevant hashtags and accounts that you want to mention – this will maximise your potential audience.

3. It’s called social media

Continuously refreshing your Connect page will not bring you more mentions. You don’t have to wait for a response – go out and get one. You should be making conversation with your audience and sparking debate with online influencers – this will organically build your following. The more people you tweet, post, and share to, the more you will receive the same back! Most importantly, you want to talk to real people online, not Billy-no-mates/trolls who are going to try to provoke a reaction out of you or waste your time – just reply politely, shut the conversation down, and MOVE ON.

4. Make your social following work for you

Targeting your content to specific audiences is key to marketing any business. So why would social media be any different? Maintain your social followers like you would any other contact database. Make use of Circles and Lists to organise your connections in order to get the best response out of them when posting content. Your audience will thank you for it. Everyone wants to read interesting and informative content – as long as it is relevant to them!

5. Don’t be an over-ambitious blogger

Blog types all depend on your business and audience, and so should your posting frequency. What would work for a food blog, wouldn’t work for a blog about annuities. So, unless your name is Fleur DeForce (the beauty and fashion blogger with over 1.4 million subscribers) you have no need to post on your blog hourly. So don’t pretend you’re going to! You’ll just depress yourself in the long run. Instead, create one perfectly formed, SEO optimized post a month. Keep it real, yeah?

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