LH AGENDA > social media

social media

Unless you have been stranded on a deserted island for the past few years, you would know that Facebook is like the “Godfather” of social media, with Australians interacting with the platform more than any other site on the Internet. If your business isn’t on Facebook yet, you really are missing out.

Facebook has given the term “marketing” a whole new meaning to business owners. Which other media channel in the world right now can target millions and aim at the exact demographic you wish to have direct communication with?

Whether you are a service or product based business, big or small, businesses are successfully using Facebook for online sales, brand exposure, communicating with new and existing customers, building loyalty and capturing emails to generate leads and converting them into actual sales.

The trick is increasing sales for your business by increasing the interaction between your brand and customers through your Facebook page – so having users click, like, share and comment regularly.

But, the million dollar question is, how do you do this?

The Basics

Social media is a continuous process that requires constant attentionYour FB page must be professionally branded and use the timeline cover image to make it clear what it is you do or offer.
Social media is a continuous process that requires constant attention. Think of it as starting a conversation with your customers and midway you go silent. Be committed and consistent every day.
You need a healthy number of users opting in to “like” your page. Promote your Facebook page link to all your customers, on your business card, email and website.
If you need to gather new “likers” – you can run a simple, low cost paid Facebook campaign where you target users (just make sure they are “likers” you’d LOVE to have as clients and fit the demographic that suits your business).
A word of warning – people still regard Facebook as a fun social space where they chat to friends and check out photos. So it’s not just about getting lots of hits or tacky hard sell; it’s about providing relevant and insightful information that actually keeps your customers there and talking.

Content – What, and how much?

Earlier this year, Facebook rolled out algorithm updates that have resulted in decreased visibility for business’s organic page posts. It means you really need to spend more time posting great content several times per day to cut through all the other businesses jumping on the bandwagon.

spend more time posting great content several times per dayPost 3-4 times per day – sounds like a lot, right? But, around 15% of your fans will see at least one of your posts per day (if even that) so increase your chances of appearing in news feeds by posting more, increasing the chances one post will get a bite.
Spread out your posts or schedule them (look into your insights tab to work out when your likers are online the most (morning, late afternoon or evening?)
Keep your posts short and sharp – 150-250 characters for optimal engagement
videos and You Tube clips have HUGE engagement ratesBy posting amazing content, the chances are it will be commented on, shared and liked many times – videos and You Tube clips have HUGE engagement rates and get great attention
Post a healthy mix of helpful information, images and useful resources that your target audience would value. This is a good driver of leads to your website and will have you perceived as trustworthy to buy from.

Paid Facebook Advertisements

With organic reach down, now is the perfect time to experiment with Facebook ads and the new revamped system is easy to use. Paid Facebook ads can appear right in a user’s newsfeed capturing a potential user to take action.

You can even zone in on actual suburbs Ensure before you create your advertisement, you know what your goal is – more website visits? More fan engagement? There’s now a guided format to help select your objective.
Take advantage of the unique targeting options – make the most of age, gender, relationship status, their workplace and job title. You can even zone in on actual suburbs if you need to attract local customers.
Use your audience meter, ensuring it isn’t too broad – advertisements will generally perform better when they are targeted to a few thousand people.
Include a clear call to action and enticing headline to encourage users to take your desired action.
Go crazy with your images (but remember to choose carefully). You can add up to six images at no extra cost and it’s a real clever way of testing how different images coupled with your advertisement perform
Have you got a healthy database of emails? You can now import your contacts (up to 5,000 names at a time) – imagine the possibilities of inviting them to your Facebook page and targeting posts to them.
Include a clear call to actionNeed more emails captured? Use software like LeadPages – it’s a powerful way that links with Facebook and allows you to present an offering (usually something for free like an E-Book or how-to-guide) in exchange for an email. Customers sign up and you now have their email to start communicating with them one on one, building a relationship of trust and expertise and then slowly building up to offer your products or service

Finally, as always, you’ve got to test, tweak and measure – always look at your Facebook insights to gauge how popular your posts and advertisements have been and who is actually taking notice – this data is gold to your ongoing efforts and it allows you to quickly see what you’re doing right or wrong – above all – have a little fun with it, put effort in daily, follow the tips above and you’ll be reaping the rewards in a short amount of time.

Featured image: djchuang
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EXCLUSIVE OFFER TO LEADERS IN HEELS READERS:
Danielle is offering a FREE 30min consultation to clarify your strategies and efforts and give your FB page a health check via Skype or a phone consult until 23 December 2014. Get in touch with her directly on danielle@creativebuzzdesign.com.au or www.creativebuzzdesign.com.au

About Danielle Grant

Danielle Grant is the director of Creative Buzz Design + Marketing based in Sydney. Danielle is a seasoned marketer, graphic designer and former English high school teacher and has spent the last decade in hospitality, transport and government roles which have developed her design, marketing flair, social media and communication skills.

She has a strong drive to help women in small businesses and entrepreneurs through workshops and 1:1 to re-shape their marketing efforts so it is fuss-free and low-cost. Danielle has helped business owners through the often daunting process of understanding social media and equipping them with the necessary tools to strive for more.

Cady: And they have this book, this “Burn Book” where they write mean things about girls in our grade.
Janis: Well what does it say about me?
Cady: You’re not in it.
Janis: Those bitches.

Mean Girls 2004

Before social media, we ranted to ourselves or to our families and friends about things that upset us. Today, we post it on social media. Problem with customer service? Post it on the company’s Facebook business page. Upset about a contestant’s behavior on a reality television show? Post it on Facebook. Very upset about someone or something? Create a Facebook Hate page.

I discussed defamation via Twitter in my last post, this article will focus on defamation via Facebook. I encourage you to read the cases, they are really interesting – I’ve used the legal citations so you can look them up. Search them.

Defamation

The law of defamation protects a person’s reputation in the community, in the sense of their right not to be denigrated eyes of others. This involves in a sense, the restriction of another common law principle – freedom of speech. The High Court of Australia said about this balancing act:

The public interest in free speech goes beyond public benefit that may be associated with a particular communication…[everyone] has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public…but if he publishes what is improper, mischievous or illegal, he must take the consequence of his own temerity. Australian Broadcasting Corporation v O’Neill (2006) 227 CLR 57 at [31]-[32].

Facebook

Facebook was launched in 2004 and its impact on society is growing with it.

It’s currently the largest online social media network. It currently has 1,310,000,000 active users, who share 1,000,000 links every twenty minutes [Link]. Social media has an informal and unreserved style, allowing rapid and spontaneous exchanges. And users are often unconcerned, uninformed or reckless when it comes to the legal risks of what they post online.

Legal Action

Facebook posts have given rise to defamation proceedings in Australia. In the matters discussed, the usual elements of defamation – publication, identification and defamatory matter – were considered. They all involve ordinary people.

Burtenshaw and Knueppel (2012)

Ms Burtenshaw was a school principal in a small community. Ms Knueppel was a parent of a student at that school. In December 2012, in the South Australian Magistrates court, Magistrate Morris was satisfied a Facebook hate page defamed the Ms Burtenshaw and awarded her $40,000 in damages. The Magistrate said:

I am satisfied that prior to the publication of the defamatory material the plaintiff had a sound personal reputation…[and] that the imputations of the subject defamatory postings are untrue. The fact that Ms Knueppel used the publication via a Facebook format and the ease of access and republication should be taken into account as a factor that aggravates the award of compensatory damages.

Polias v Ryall [2013] NSWSC 1267 is a matter which is, at the time of publication, still before the Court. It involves various messages on Facebook profiles between (former) friends. So far, the presiding judge has found some of the defamatory imputations complained of are “abusive words incapable of conveying any defamatory meaning; meaningless abuse; or vulgar abuse not damaging the plaintiff’s reputation”. Interestingly enough, these proceedings have generated some media interest because of the subject matter. A point to bear in mind is the publicity generated by defamation actions, ironically get the message out further.

Mickle v Farley [2013] NSWDC 295 involves a social media double whammy. The defamatory postings were made to Twitter as well as Facebook. The posts were brought to the attention of Ms Mickle by the school principal, who spent time each week to dealing with Facebook issues that arose in relation to students. Mr Farley was a former student of the school, but not of Ms Mickle. His father had been replaced by Ms Mickle when he went on sick leave. Mr Farley was ordered to pay $105,000 in damages. The trial judge found in favour of Ms Mickle, a high school music teacher:

When defamatory publications are made on social media it is common knowledge that they spread. They are spread easily by the simple manipulation of mobile phones and computers. Their evil lies in the grapevine effect that stems from the use of this type of communication.

Opening a fictitious profile to be a “mean girl”

Don’t think that if you have a fictitious profile, it’s open slather to spread hate. Courts have ordered social media platforms to disclose the identities of anonymous social media users through applications for preliminary discovery. In Western Australia, the Supreme Court ordered the disclosure of information relating to posters’ identities in relation to defamatory statements/postings on forums [Resolute Limited and Anor v Warnes [2000] WASC 35 and HotCopper Australia [2010] WASC]. In Britain, the High Court granted an order requiring Facebook to disclose information including the IP addresses of the creators of an offending Facebook page [Applause Store Productions v Raphael [2008] EWHC 1781 (QB)].

How can you protect yourself for being sued for defamation?

Think before you post!
Anonymous or fake profiles are no protection.
Think before you post!
Ordinary people can be sued for defamation.
Think before you post!

Social media has transformed modern communication. It allows people to share interesting as well as mundane stories, engage with businesses, market their own expertise and connect with peers. But when you use social media, temper your behavior online and don’t be impulsive.

Yolanda Floro is Leaders in Heels’ Social Media Editor. This is an edited and modified extract from a recent paper she wrote on Defamation and Social Media as part of her Masters in Law, Media and Journalism studies.

The catchphrase “Do you know where your children are?” was a popular public service announcement on American television, but despite your children being under your roof – do you know where they are in the digital world?

Sydney, 28 July 2014: Leaders in Heels were invited to a media event to discuss the findings of the 2014 Australian Teens, Tweens and Technology research by McAfee, part of Intel Security. The research looked into the online behavior of teens and tweens – from how they use apps to their opinions on cyberbullying and current online trends.

“Teens and tweens are comfortable operating in the online world, yet the risks have never been greater and they need to understand the consequences of their online behavior”–Melanie Duca, APAC Consumer Marketing Director, McAfee.

The Research

1013 teens and tweens of an equal gender split and representative of all Australian demographics were surveyed. McAfee’s research found that 81% of Australia’s youth have witnessed cyberbullying-a huge jump of 56% from 2013. This research, in its second year, aims to educate tweens and teens on the impact that risky behavior has on their privacy, reputation and social media experience.

The research found that YouTube is the number one social site across all age groups, with Facebook the most likely to be visited daily. However, new social media sites such as Keek, a video-based social networking site, Yik, an anonymous messaging site, and Snapchat, a photo-messaging platform where users can take photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and send them to a controlled list of recipients. These sent photographs and videos are known as “Snaps”. Users set a time limit for how long recipients can view their Snaps (as of April 2014, the range is from 1 to 10 seconds. There’s also Kik, a smartphone messenger with a built-in browser, and Keek, a social networking service that allows its users to upload video status updates, which are called “keeks”, have gained quick acceptance across all age groups.

Facebook has seen a spike in underage users, with 31% of 8-9 years old, compared with 26% in 2013 and 60% of 10-12 year olds admitting to having a Facebook profile, despite the minimum age being 13 years.

The survey also revealed that 40% of teens and tweens are experiencing cyberbullying.

Life Education Australia identified a huge demand for cybersafety and partnered with McAfee to educate primary aged children in cybersafety and cyber ethics. Coincidentally, my child was participating in the Life Education bCyberwise programme at school today – and she found it reinforced the advice we have given our children at home (phew). Their programme is aligned with the Australian curriculum and offers a safe learning environment, empowering children to make safe choices.

“Our bCyberwise and It’s Your Call programmes, developed in conjunction with McAfee, teach teens and tweens about being safe cyber citizens and how to respect others online, with the focus on prevention, as well as teaching valuable skills that promote social and emotional development, positive relationships, self-respect and safe-decision-making online.”–Robyn Richardson, Life Education National Programme Development Manager

Generation Like

What the research also found is that drive for attention and acceptance, as well as the growing comfort level of young people with digital media, is leading to them letting their guard down and engaging in risky behaviours. Nearly half (48%) have chatted online with a stranger and one in five have met someone in person that they first met online.

Parenting expert Dr Justin Coulsen explained that the pre-frontal cortex, where our higher-level thinking occurs, does not fully develop until the early 20s for females and mid 20s for males. This explains the impulsivity and “thoughtlessness” of our youth, who thrive on the social media currency of likes, shares and retweets to prove their popularity amongst peers.

“We know that teens and tweens are willing to sacrifice privacy and cybersafety for the gratification they feel when their social network responds positively”–Dr Justin Coulsen

Parental guidance

Parents need to guide experiences. Dr Coulson made the wonderful analogy that we wouldn’t give our children car keys and say off you go – drive. We ensure they learn to drive a vehicle properly, and once they attain their provisional license, there are still restrictions on driving behaviours. Eight in ten teens and tweens said they respect guidance from parents on personal decisions regarding social media and that their parents trust them to make the right decisions.

However, parents aren’t fully across their children’s online activity, with 70% saying their parents know only some of what they do online, as they proactively hide what they do online from their parents. Half said their parents can’t keep up with the technology. So parents, you need to up your tech cred. The key is monitoring, which means having a conversation with your children. Installing spyware is subversive.

“Parents should establish an ongoing, non-confrontational dialogue with their children about this topic and continue to monitor their activities ,as well as stay up-to-date with advancements in technology and social networking .”–Alex Merton-McCann, McAfee Cybermum

Other survey highlights

Younger children fear being bullied online (27%), whereas teens are more fearful of losing their information (21%), being hacked (31%) and losing their privacy (23%).

Top Tips for Parents

Connect with your kids. Talk to them about online risks and make sure the communication lines are always open.
Learn the technology. Take the time to research the various devices and apps your children use. You want to know more than they do.
Get Social. Stay knowledgeable about the latest social networks so you understand how it works.
Reputation Management. Make sure your children are aware that anything they post online is permanent.
Stay calm. If your children come to you with an online problem, do not over-react. Deal with it calmly and don’t threaten to take devices away, or they won’t feel confident seeking your help again.
Be a model digital citizen yourself. If your children see you behaving inappropriately online, they’ll take that as a cue for their behavior.

Yolanda Floro

Yolanda is Leaders in Heels’ Social Media Editor.

You can read more about McAfee here.

You can read more about Life Education Australia and McAfee’s bCyberwise programme here.

In the pop culture classic film “Mean Girls”, the Plastics have their Burn Book – a book where they record mean observations about their school community. It’s the revelations of the Burn Book that leads to chaos in the film.

Think of social media as the Burn Book on steroids.

This is the first of a two part series on defamation and social media. Social media and particularly Twitter present challenges as it allows instantaneous communication by anyone with a social media account. I will not be discussing here the possibility of Twitter being culpable as a publisher in Australia.

In 2011, the Supreme Court of Western Australia has commented on the distinction between traditional and electronic media in the decision of Prefumo v Bradley, noting users post online without proper consideration of their actions:

Twitter, blogs and other forms of social media such as Facebook impact on the way people communicate and the language they use. Communications through those media often lack…formality and careful consideration…that will effect both what is regarded as defamatory and the potential for harm.

What is Defamation?

Defamation law protects individuals’ reputations and assumes that all people are of good character unless the opposite is proved. A negative statement concerning someone’s character may not necessarily be defamatory – it depends on factors such as to whom it was sad and the context in which it was said.

Twitter

Twitter currently has 645,750,000 active registered users worldwide, who tweet a daily average of 58 million messages,¹ leaving users potentially exposed to defamation proceedings because the 140 character limit leaves little space for context. Social media is mistakenly perceived as an authority for information by some, and a user of some celebrity is definitely influential.

Legal Action

There have been a number of recent defamation matters in Australia and the United Kingdom which have arisen from Twitter.

Cairns v Modi [2012] EWHC 756 (QB) was the United Kingdom’s first Twitter defamation litigation. The parties were a former international cricket player and a commissioner of the Indian Premier League cricket. The decision examined the publication of the defamatory tweet (which for obvious reasons, will not be re-published here). For the purposes of the trial, it was agreed that 65 of Mr Modi’s followers would have read it, and it was accepted there would have been substantial publication beyond that through re-tweeting.

The trial judge, Mr Justice Bean observed that “the poison tends to spread far more rapidly” when comments are published by anyone with a significant profile and following on Twitter, and is therefore able to go viral almost instantly to a global audience. Once publication was established, the trial judge applied the usual principles of defamation and found Mr Modi’s tweet defamatory of Mr Cairns. Mr Cairns was awarded £90,000 for damage to his reputation.

In The Lord McAlpine of West Green v Sally Bercow [2013] EWHC 1342 (QB), Mr Justice Tugendhat found the tweet sent by the Ms Bercow bore a “natural and ordinary defamatory meaning” and in the alternative, an “innuendo meaning” of the same effect . The tweet emanated from a television program which made serious allegations of child abuse against an unnamed politician from the Thatcher years. Other defandants had apologised and settled before trial. Ms Bercow argued that the phrase “ * innocent face * “ was to be understood in a neutral rather literal manner, maintaining that she had noticed Lord McAlpine’s name was trending on Twitter and was simply asking why. Her defence was rejected.

In 2011, Australian media personality Marieke Hardy settled out of court with the individual whom she incorrectly named as the author of a hate blog against her by paying him undisclosed damages and issuing a public apology.

How can you protect yourself?

1. Think before you tweet!
2. Disclaimers on your profile offer no legal protection.
3. Think before you tweet!
4. Ordinary people can be sued for defamation.
5. Think before you tweet!

Sally Bercow said it best in her statement after the ruling which cost her undisclosed damages and legal costs of more than £100,000:

Today’s ruling should be seen as a warning to all social media users. Things can be held to be seriously defamatory even when you do not intend them to be defamatory and do not make any express accusation. I have learned my lesson the hard way².

Yolanda Floro
Yolanda is Leaders in Heels’ Social Media Editor. This is an edited and modified extract from a recent paper she wrote on Defamation and Social Media as part of her Masters in Law, Media and Journalism studies.

¹http://www.statisticbrain.com/twitterstatistics/
²http://www.leeandthopson.com/2013/06/17/mcalpine-v-bercow-a-hard-lesson-for-social-media-users/

Unless you’ve been cave dwelling for a decade or so, social media is a part of your life. What started with email has expanded to include the very popular and always open Facebook and to include Youtube, Vine, Twitter, Instagram and others. At any given moment throughout the day, we have images and words from family, friends, and others barely qualified as acquaintances at our fingertips.

While we humans crave social interaction and acceptance, social media often skews our perceptions of reality leading to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem, also known as Social Media Depression.

Chatting with other mothers at school drop off recently, I noticed one woman not contributing to the conversation. We were planning classroom/teacher’s gifts and had been busy studying Pinterest, baking, decorating and, of course, splashing our fabulous results on Facebook and Instagram.

How we are really feeling

After the kiddos had entered the classroom, we all said our goodbyes and, the quiet woman and I headed to our cars. I asked if she were planning to organise any gifts and she immediately burst into tears. Through sobs, she explained she was neither a crafty person nor a cook, and couldn’t decorate gingerbread to save her life. And even if she tried, the results wouldn’t be the stunning creations she saw all over the social media. “Everyone is like Martha Stewart’s $%^&#* Protégé !”

This mum isn’t alone with her feelings. She can’t be the only person who experiences inadequacy as a result of what she sees on the Internet. After all, we’re subjected to perfection every time we open our social media pages. We all have one or more friends in our social media circles who just seems to have everything together. Their life as displayed on social media defines perfection. Dad is cheerfully building a tree house, taking little Johnny fishing or bringing in fresh cut flowers. Mum, despite being 40, shows no grey hairs or wrinkles, jogs 5 kilometres a day through the park at 6 am, only to come back and make a healthy breakfast by 7am (every action photographed with a filter for Instagram of course!). As if that isn’t enough, the kids are good looking, say the cutest things, excel at school and participate in every possible after school activity etc.

Meanwhile in Normalville, I’m late getting the kids up, shrieking at them to hurry up (and consequently hiding in the garage from my neighbours in fear that they’ve heard my broken record playing all morning). My breakfast is slightly stale cold (or non-existent). The laundry pile is Mt Kilimanjaro high and the beds haven’t been made since Grandma came to visit.

Social media resilience

The reaction of the tearful mum at school and my thoughts after talking with her begs the question, why are we tied up in something that makes us feel bad? I’m sure many people handle the plethora of perfection just fine. But for others, it’s difficult to separate perfection from reality. 140 characters, a few lines on Facebook and 10 second video clips are simply not enough to give reality a chance. Being unaware may not be blissful after all. It may instead lead to SMD (Social Media Depression) if you believe that portrayal of perfection.

For me, the thing to remember is this. You simply can’t believe everything you see and read on social media. This shouldn’t be a big surprise to anyone. Aren’t we all fudging our lives a little? I’m not about to post a 10 second clip of my husband losing his mind because the car won’t start or the tantrum that the threenager is throwing because I cut his toast the wrong way.

Instead, we post the top scores, the freshly baked cookies, the green smoothies, fabulous holiday adventures and yes, we add a filter to ensure no one sees wrinkles and greys. But none of us have a picture perfect life. We all have problems, issues or possibly even secrets we don’t want revealed.

The truth will set you free

Recently a friend’s cousin disappeared from Facebook after years of posting perfect family images and anecdotes. After the initial relief wore off, we found out her oldest son is seriously drug addicted and nearly died from an overdose. The sad situation brought out the best and worst in their family. Some were downright gleeful that their picture perfect life was a lie and others; well they just wanted to help out any possible way.

Do we avoid truth because we fear negative reaction? Maybe, but regardless, we must recognize truth is rarely 100% on social media and do what we were told in primary school. Stop worrying about your neighbour and do your own work. I think it applies perfectly to Social Media Depression. Now excuse me while I go bribe my youngest and beg my oldest to go stand in our garden and smile. #SayCheese

Marisa South

Marisa is a Senior Digital Media Analyst at seoWorks, a wife and mother to two young children. Fascinated by social media and a lover of it at the same time, she enjoys keeping up to date with evolving Digital Media trends. When she’s not tweeting, Google+ing, Facebooking or Instagramming you’ll find her trying to conquer the Mt Kilimanjaro high washing pile in between meeting the demands of her two little people.

“I’m on my social media accounts all the time – where are my sales?” is a cry often heard from many businesses. With limited time, we need to see return from our marketing efforts. However, all too often the effort we put into social media shows little, if any return.

It’s possible your business is making one (or all!) of the common social media mistakes below.

1. Ineffective Targeting

Have you gone through the exercise of making sure you are targeting the market you seek? Social media can’t be general – there is far too much traffic and far too many others trying to be heard to make general social media effective.

Look for groups that will be receptive to your message

Instead, look for groups that will be receptive to your message. Make sure the social media channels you are on are those favoured by your target market.

Don’t know exactly who your target market is? You need to stop all your social media efforts right now, and work that out before you waste another minute.

2. Failure to Engage

Do you post content that is interesting and valuable to your audience? Boring content that simply regurgitates ideas that are already out there is a sure-fire way to disengage your audience.

As the specialist in your field, you have information and knowledge that your target market doesn’t. Don’t be afraid of putting too much information out there – consider the example of the computer repair company Geek Squad. They have hundreds of videos on YouTube showing people how to repair their own computers and configure things correctly. Why on earth would a company whose business is to repair and configure computers put all that information out there? Robert Stephens, the founder of Geek Squad, said that their best customers are those who can do a little for themselves, then go to Geek Squad when it all gets too difficult.

Social media… is… about interaction and mutual benefit.

Engagement also means speaking to the people who respond to your posts. Social media, by definition, is social. It’s about interaction and mutual benefit. A simple ‘thank you for your comment’ can go a long way toward creating positive feeling around you and your company – which puts you front-of-mind when the person decides they need the services your company offers.

3. Failure to use Leverage

Once you have built up some trust with your audience, you need to leverage the relationships you have built. As with all relationships, if you don’t stay in contact, the relationship slips away. A regular email with a short message giving good information will always be well received.

As with all relationships, if you don’t stay in contact, the relationship slips away.

A master at this type of leverage-using is Phil Frost from MainStreetROI. He provides useful tips for social media usage in a regular email and always includes a little bit of personal information as well – about new staff members, or how he took his daughter to swimming lessons, or how he and his wife managed to get some time off to go to the movies.

Personalisation of your business messages to those you have already started to build a relationship with means they will engage with you as a person – and they are much more likely to read an email they get from a person they ‘know’ than a faceless company.

Every now and then Phil sends a sales message – but since most of his posts are interesting and informative, his readers aren’t irritated at receiving the sales pitch – in fact, they have such a good opinion of Phil (and they feel like they ‘know’ him) that they seriously consider his pitches when he sends them.

4. Not Enough Automation

As small business owners, we have limited time. Keeping up with what needs to be posted on your social media channels can suck up loads of your time. This is where you can use automation to relieve your load.

I certainly don’t advocate doing this instead of posting your own content. You need to show that you are a thought leader in your industry and niche. And I don’t advocate posting any old thing to your channels. All this will do is lead to poor targeting of your efforts. But I do advocate using the tools available to you to make your job easier. And for this reason, I suggest that instead of always writing your own articles, you can curate posts by others, and schedule them to go up on your sites at regular times.

You need to show that you are a thought leader in your industry and niche.

First, sign up to Buffer. Buffer can be used free to schedule up to ten items to post to your social media accounts at a time. If you choose to post daily, that means you can load ten days of content at a time. If, like me, you like to post several times a day, you can schedule 2 to 3 days-worth of content. The paid version allows you to schedule with no limitations.

On Buffer you set up the social media accounts you wish to post to (your Facebook, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, Twitter accounts are all that are supported), then create a schedule for each account you wish to post to. Once Buffer is loaded on to your computer, you will see the Buffer icon has been added to the top right hand corner of your internet page. That is where you schedule from.

Second, find a good blog aggregation site that has information that will be relevant to your audience. These are also called news aggregators, RSS feeds and blog directories. There are plenty of them to choose from – bloglines.com, technorati.com and blogarama.com are just a few. My favourite is a relatively new one called Alltop.com – it sorts blogs into subject matter, making it easy to find what you are looking for.

Once you have found an article that will be of interest to your target audience, click on the Buffer icon. You will be given options to post now, or to schedule, and all of the social media accounts you signed up to Buffer will be shown. Select the one(s) you want to post the content to, and it’s done.

5. Too Much Automation

If the only things you post are curated content, you will lose audience engagement.

You do need to be very careful with automation though. If the only things you post are curated content, you will lose audience engagement. And if you make no responses to your audience when they respond to your posts, or automated responses that are not well executed, you will come across as faceless and corporate – instead of personable and social, which is expected on social media.

An example of too much automation comes from the Twitter account of Bank of America – a robot noticed a comment by a person who was issued a move along notice while he was chalk drawing on the pavement outside Bank of America. The first automatic response made no sense given the content of the original tweet, but after that, regardless of the tweets’ content, the account offered to “review your account with you to discuss any concerns.”

Capture

The bottom line is, think through the strategies you are going to use to control your social media accounts. Know what you want to accomplish, and know how you are going to accomplish it. Know the pitfalls, and keep your social media clear of them. That way, you will be seen as a knowledgeable, friendly and –most importantly – social member of your communities.

Featured image: kdonovan_gaddy

Bree Vreedenburgh

Bree runs a company, BV International, which offers Franchisees and Small Business owners the opportunity to gain professional coaching that is designed especially for them. When she’s not working, Bree can often be found writing plays, and treading the boards at her local community theatre. She has also written several short business books and is currently in the processes of publishing her first full-length business book.

Bree can be contacted on 08 6365 5405 or by emailing bree@bvint.com

Check out Get Your Life Back ebook by Kasia Gospos, founder of Leaders in Heels, on how you can streamline and automate your business and life so that you have more time for what you really love.

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