Trying to manage social media for a business can be a heavy task to take on. The immediacy of social media makes businesses feel the need to consume themselves with every social channel, tweet, and pin. Luckily, there is a way to maintain a strong social media presence for your business without spending 8 hours a day managing it. These nine steps break down the social media setup from start to finish.

Choosing the Right Social Channels

First things first, you need to decide what social channels you want your business to have a presence on. Yes, it looks great when websites have social icons for every social channel in their header and footer, but not every channel makes sense for every business. For example, a small, local insurance company can use Pinterest and Instagram to drive traffic to their website and blog, but most likely won’t gain new, local clients directly from those social channels. Whereas, using Google+, LinkedIn, and Facebook can increase their local exposure and actually generate new clientele.

If you’re limited on resources for managing social media or just unsure what channels your business belongs on, follow this social media breakdown and see where your business goals would be best accomplished.

• Facebook
  – Over 40 million active small business pages
  – Acts as a customer service portal for customer inquiries, questions, and concerns
  – Users can post reviews and ratings about a business on Facebook
  – Businesses can target direct demographics and create new audiences using Facebook Advertising
  – Promote events, special offers, new products, and more
  – Define branding with specific types of imagery and content
  – Increase website traffic by sharing blog posts and links to specific landing pages
• Twitter
  – Way to respond to customer questions and concerns through tweets and Direct Messages
  – Create and follow trending hashtags to generate new marketing ideas
  – Host contests and promotions on Twitter
  – Increase website traffic by sharing blog posts and links to specific landing pages
  – Monitor what is being said about a brand, as well as what competitors are doing
• Pinterest
  – Increase traffic to a website by backlinking pins to relevant blog posts and landing pages
  – Share new products and updated information
  – Host contests and promote contest steps
• Instagram
  – Great channel for retail, restaurants, and creative businesses
  – Host contests and promotions on Instagram
  – Drive traffic to new blog posts and product pages
  – Share images of new products and product collages

• Snapchat
  – Tell a story using short videos and interviews
  – Increase branding and build a following
• Google+
  – Customers can leave reviews and give star ratings, which are seen in search
  – SEO benefits like updated business information, maps, and information from posts used in searches
  – Increase website traffic by sharing blog posts and links to specific landing pages
• YouTube
  – Demonstrate how to use your products
  – Share knowledge about a specific service/industry using webinars and short videos
  – Connect with relevant subscribers, similar channels, and YouTube stars
  – Increase SEO by adding videos to your website hosted from YouTube
• LinkedIn
  – Create a professional presence networking on LinkedIn
  – Join and create different groups that are relevant to your industry
  – Connect with like-minded colleagues
  – Scout for new employees
  – Increase website traffic by sharing blog posts and links to specific landing pages

Create a Branded Voice

Regardless of industry, every business has an opportunity to define their voice. This specific voice is heard across multiple marketing platforms like advertising, print materials, web design, blog posts, and social channels. It’s not just a vocal voice, but a style of writing, types of image filters, and how customers define a business, ethics, and relatability.

Is your demographic young and spunky or more sophisticated and older? Based on your demographic, implement a branded voice when writing social media posts and creating images and videos. Each social channel should mimic each other’s style and offer a familiar branded feel. Mashable does a great job of maintaining the same voice across their social channels. They’re content is trending, playful, and full of spunk, with images to match. They clearly know their audience and have a voice to match.

Divide and Conquer

Social media management is a heavy task to take on, especially if resources are limited. Whether you have a team of 1 or a team of 20 to manage social media, decide who is going to be responsible for which channels, managing engagement, and posting. Doing this before launching the social channels will avoid the inevitable headache of rushing to get a social media team together post-engagement. Don’t forget to share Admin access to each Facebook Admin!

Create the Page, Already!

Now, it’s time to sign up and create accounts for each designated social media channel. Create a unique email address that can be used as the primary login for each social channel, like [email protected]. This will prevent your primary email account from becoming full of social updates, while giving you a central place to notify each time engagement was made.

Using the same email address, create unique passwords for each social channel. But, avoid using the same password for each profile. This will help save you from getting hacked and is especially important when managing larger brands.

Please, Fill in Your “About” Section

“Yes, I would love to come to your Twitter page and have no idea what your business does, where your website is, and why I should bother following you.”
– No One Ever

Please, add important business information to each channel so users have a basic understanding of the business, as well as how to connect. Include links to websites, call to action buttons on Facebook, phone numbers and basic “About” information.

Be strategic about the type of business information you share on each channel. For example, on LinkedIn you want everything about everything business related, whereas Twitter you want to be catchy and branded.

Design Images to Match Each Channel

Every social channel has different image sizing constrictions. The cover photo on Facebook is a completely different width than the cover photo on Twitter. Adjust your images for each profile and utilize the social media’s platform.

For example, the profile photo box on Facebook will cover part of the cover image, as well as the call to action button and name of the page. Use this to your advantage and create a cover photo and profile image that compliments each other.

Here are all of the size requirements you’ll need for designing social media images:

Get Organized with a Social Media Calendar

A social media calendar will help schedule important holidays, foresee upcoming events, and plan promotions. Without using a calendar you’re basically posting in the dark. Each of your posts may not correlate as well with each other and branding won’t be consistent.

There are several premade social media calendar templates out there, like Falcon Social, HubSpot, and Hootsuite’s. You can also make your own using Google Excel and list each profile, content examples, links to images, dates, and upcoming holidays. Using Google Excel makes it easy to share the calendar with other team members.

Post Frequently, But Not Too Frequently

There isn’t one standard for how often a business should post across all social media channels. Each channel and industry is different and has an audience that appreciates a specific amount of engagement. Use the below as a guideline for posting, but eventually listen to your audience and analytics and post based on their response.

• Instagram – 1-2 Times a Day
  Instagram is a place to share powerful and engaging images. If you have enough content to post impactful images on Instagram each day, then do so. Otherwise work on creating high quality images with captivating filters and hashtags. Keep quality over quantity on channels like Instagram.
• Facebook – 1-3 Times a Day
  Facebook can require more activity, especially since posts will only be seen by a limited audience with organic reach issues.
• Pinterest – 5+ Times a Day
  Pinterest is easy to engage with multiple times throughout the day. Between favoriting pins, adding boards, and uploading your own pins, Pinterest can be one of your most frequently engaged with social channels.
• Twitter – 3-5 Times a Day
  Twitter is known for it’s real time response. When a disaster happens, a celebrity mic drops, or someone gets eaten by a zombie on the Walking Dead, Twitter is usually the first to respond. That doesn’t mean your business has to, but it does need to maintain a consistent presence and look for opportunities to be a part of trends.

Maintain Engagement in a Timely Manner

Social media is a great way for businesses to connect with their customers and showcase their brand. Likes, tweets, repins, reviews, comments, etc. are all ways customers try to connect with a business. That’s why it’s vital to respond to any type of connection on social media in a timely manner. If your team takes too long to respond on social, users will take note against the brand. The proper response time is as quickly as possible. If you’re unable to immediately respond, at least respond within the same day, not going past 24-hours without a response.