#SocialMedia - Daily Checklist

Distraction is the nature of social media. Getting lost in the endless stream of information happens to the best of us. You login with the best intentions to update your company's daily piece of content (as stated in your marketing strategy) and get out, but somehow... an hour has passed and you're climbing out of a rabbit hole of articles, filtered photos, and viral videos... And you haven’t updated your status!

Enter your businesses’ social realm with this to-do list handy to ensure you achieve your daily social marketing objective fast & efficiently.

1 - Respond To Messages

Once upon a time, if a potential customer left a message for your company, you’d come back to a flashing red light on the phone at your desk. With so many social platforms, and within those platforms different opportunities to communicate, the first thing you need to do is check for messages when you log into your company’s social pages.

• Check your company Facebook page for wall posts, comments, and direct messages.

• Check Twitter for mentions, RTs and DMs.

• Check Instagram for comments, photo tags, and mentions.

Respond to any and all mentions, comments, and direct messages first and foremost.

2 - Engage

The social dynamics of the online world work similarly to the offline world - treat others as you would like to be treated. If you want people to engage and share what you have to say, begin by doing the same for them.

Take a quick scroll through what is trending online. Like, comment, retweet, share, or favorite at least three social posts before proceeding to #3.

3 - Share Content

It's time to share your valuable piece of content with your following. Share content that will educate, inform, or entertain your reader. Content should align with your social media strategy, can be created by your business, or curated from your favourite sources.

What should you share?

• Articles
• Videos
• Photos
• Links
• Infographics

Variety is the spice of social. Be sure to share all types of content with your following to engage your readership. Over time, you'll learn through engagement what type of content your audience responds best to, whether it be photos, infographics or plain old text-only tweets.

Conversational narcissists are just as off-putting online as they are offline. For every one post that is ‘sell’ for your company, you should share six posts that are not. If you are updating one piece of content daily, this works out to talking about or selling your business in a piece of content about once a week.

4 - Adapt

Depending on the type of content you're sharing, you'll be able to post the same piece of content across all of your businesses’ social platforms. Since social networks aren't created equal, you'll need to adapt the content for each platform.

Image dimensions vary from one platform to the next and should be edited/adjusted to ensure the content looks good and fits on the platform. Click here for detailed, up to date, image size dimension for each platform.

Things to keep in mind

Facebook

• If sharing a link / video ensure that the photo that appears with it is good quality. If not, upload a suitable photo to accompany it.
• Add a caption to all photos. Photo captions are a great place to add a link to a video/article.
• Tag all people & businesses involved within the photo or status.

Twitter

• Keep your tweet concise (140 characters doesn't allow for a long caption)
• Shorten your link using a link shortener (like bit.ly.)
• Add relevant hashtags to help people find you.
• Mention the source of article in tweet.
• If space allows, include a photo.

Instagram

• Don't go overboard with filters, they can make your photos look less professional.
• Use a free app to create a photo collage of the company picnic instead of updating 5 separate posts. (Keep frames clean without embellishments.)
• Keep caption concise.
• Use location space to include link to blog post or website.
• Add hashtags in the comment to keep caption area neat.

5 - Schedule

Make the most of your time online by scheduling a piece of content for the future - either later on in the day or for the next. Schedule links for times outside of standard business hours as well, when your competition’s accounts are idle.

Facebook lets you schedule a post into the future by clicking the clock icon in the bottom left corner of the status update box.

Use a platform such as Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule tweets for the future.

Don't give in to the temptation of scheduling content infinitely into the future and letting your social marketing cruise on auto-pilot. Daily check-ins on social allow you to keep your finger on the pulse of what's trending, online and in your industry, and give you a chance to listen to what your network is saying and join in on the conversation.

On top of these daily to-do's, analyze your social insights weekly to evaluate your social efforts.

Need an ROI-focused social media strategy for your business? Contact us!