Unsure Where to Start with Social Media?

Originally posted on January 7th, 2019. Updated November 11th, 2019.

Often our clients tell us either one of two things: “I have all this content, but I’m not sure how to share it,” or, “I don’t have social media, but want to start using it and posting about my business. Where do I start?”

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Both are very valid questions.

So, where do you start with social media?

Scenario 1: You have a business website with content, but no social media accounts (or inactive ones).

• Just start with thinking about basic visibility and the fact that you’re really excited to share something about your business. Go to your website—what do you want people to know? The best thing to share is something that will educate your audience and bring them value. Make a note or two of what you’d like to share.
• Next, figure out the best social media platforms for your audience. Send out an email to some of your best customers—ask them which platform they use most frequently.
• By the way – if you’re not sure who your audience is, fill out this quick buyer persona worksheet.
• It’s good to understand that you don’t need to sign up for ALL of the social media accounts. Perhaps your customers get back to you and mention they’re mostly on Facebook and Instagram. Great! Now…

Start small and work your way up (only if you need to)!

• Start with ONE account. Let’s choose Facebook because it’s the easiest to set up. This is a good one to start with anyway because it adds to your overall online presence and helps customers find you if you have a local business, for example.
  • This is still a pretty good resource for setting up a Facebook Page: How to build a Facebook page for beginners
• Let’s now think about those notes you’d written down of what you want to share with your audience—and write a post. Here are some tips:
  • Summarize what your content is about in 1-2 sentences – or ask a question that leads to your topic. Keep it brief.
  • Create a clear call to action to entice readers to well, take action.
  • Make sure you include your link!
  • Add an image. Historically speaking photos (and videos) carry a lot of weight on Facebook. Plus, people more likely to share those types of posts.
  • Send your post!
• Here’s a great (free) resource for creating an image if you don’t have one: Canva.com
• Now that you have your Facebook page set up, invite your friends via Facebook – and invite your customers via email.
  • In the email, use something simple, like “We are delighted to tell you about our new Facebook page and it will include a number of exciting contests. Please click here to visit it and we hope you “Like” it.”
• After the invites are out, people will most likely start coming to your Facebook page, liking, and going to the new post you’ve just shared.

Scenario 2: You have a business website with content, and you manually share posts when you can. How can you automate this?

• • I think one of the easiest (and free) tools you can start with is Buffer. When you’re just starting to figure out how you’ll post to social media and what you’ll be sharing—this tool is really straightforward and includes a TON of resources to get you going.
    • You’ll need to sign up for a free account, then follow the steps to connect your social account, such as Facebook.
  • With a scheduling tool like Buffer, you can schedule your posts for the whole week, choose what time you want to post, add images/video, and more!
  • Buffer will help suggest the best times to post, so don’t think too much about that right now. But if you want to here are some tips from Neil Patel:

• The number of posts that you schedule in the queue depends on how much content you have to share. If you have little content on the site, perhaps you’ll stick with twice per week. If you have more, perhaps you can start with 1 post per day.
• Here are some tips about the frequency of posting from Gary Vee:

• One additional tool that is easy to set up (on your WordPress site) is Publicize within the Jetpack plugin for WordPress. When you publish a post, you can have it automatically shared to your social networks as opposed to manually scheduling it in a tool like Buffer.

Here are some tips from Jetpack to get you started sharing right away.

Social Media can seem intimidating and can be confusing to figure out where to begin—no matter if you’re just starting out or you’re trying to elevate your overall strategy. Without diving super deep into nitty-gritty social media strategy—we hope these two different scenarios and quick tips help you started posting in no time.