As a local business owner you probably feel as if you never have enough time for anything. Between ensuring that your inventory is current and dealing with the latest employee issue, do you really have an extra 6-8 hours a week to dedicate to your social media? We are talking about managing all your social media networks (think Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc), connecting with potential new followers, responding to comments/posts, and monitoring your brands keywords in order to manage any negative mentions you might have, and that’s just mentioning a couple of thing you should be doing.

I have seen many local businesses try to accomplish the task of managing their social media, and some do a great job, while others not so great. Regardless, in order to ensure that you are getting the most out of your business’ social media it is good to have a daily cheat sheet to ensure you are covering all your bases. As you know here at Amplify, digital and social media is a huge component of what we do for our clients. So I thought I’d share with you a couple of key things we monitor and do on a daily basis for our clients.

Check your social media profiles – EVERYDAY!

The first thing you should do every morning is log into your social media accounts. Don’t set up an account and forget about it. One of the most important aspects of social media is that you are present in the conversation with your customers.

Respond to all interactions.

Regardless if the comment/tweet is positive or negative you need to engage with anyone who goes out of his or her way to directly communicate with through social media. Every comment is a real person that is choosing to interact with your brand, and if you don’t respond that might be one customer that won’t bother with your business again.

Post interesting content to encourage engagement from your followers.

Update your status with relevant, engaging information about your business. Here are a couple of different formats:

  • Ask a question
  • Share a statistic
  • Comment on news
  • Post a picture
  • Share a blog or article

When posting on social media you need to make sure you are clearly stating what you want your followers to do. Make sure your call to action is clearly stated and easy to do. Things like “Share your thoughts” or “Hit Like if you agree”, really help to stimulate interaction.

Don’t be afraid to seek out new followers.

The bulk of the people that follow you should be people that love your brand. But sometimes, especially with local businesses, you haven’t gotten the traction or brand recognition yet to naturally build your following, so don’t be afraid to be proactive about it.

For example, on Twitter seek out industry leaders, follow them and more than likely they will follow you back and maybe even some of their followers will follow you too. On Facebook, things are a little different, but seek out people who have shown interest in your business and message them, and tell them to go like your page.

While social media has provided local businesses with a great opportunity to reach the masses via Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc., it has also caused a massive headache for many business owners. With the constant need to update and engage with your followers it seems like the job is never done, but with a little bit of organization and time you can get your social media marketing back on track.