Social networks are and will remain popular. Social networks can have multiple purposes, whether for customer acquisition, entertainment, making contacts or recruiting new employees. Are you still thinking about creating a channel for your craft business?
You’re right if a Facebook or Instagram profile can be set up quickly. But when it comes to maintaining and optimizing your presence on social networks, you have to keep an eye on and invest more than just 20 minutes. Five questions before creating a channel: Before making a channel on one of the many available social networks, you should answer the following five questions:
What is my goal?
The core question: What goal do you want to open a channel for? If the only reason is to have a track, you should put the plan out of your head and continue to think about the core question. You should choose the social network and your content depending on how you answer this question. For example, If you want to use your channel to attract customers, you will want to show many work results to promote yourself and your work. If you use your network to attract new employees or trainees, you will focus your content more on the advantages of your workplace. Who am I? Who is my company?
Who am I? Who is my company?
Once you have answered the first question, this is at least as important as What defines you or your company? In marketing terms, this is called the USP or unique selling point.
Who do I want to reach?
Depending on what goal you want to open your channel with, you can think about who you want to reach. This decision also helps you choose the right social network. For example, the average age of profiles on Facebook is older than that of profiles on Instagram.
How much time and effort do I want to invest?
Maintaining a social media channel takes time. That’s why you should think carefully beforehand about how much of your work and free time you want to invest and, depending on what goal you have for your channel, how much time is worth supporting. It would help if you allowed time for image and text creation, image editing, and community maintenance, i.e. answering comments and messages to your site and, very importantly, collecting ideas.
Which channels inspire me?
To get a more precise idea of what possibilities your social media channel can offer, it is worth looking for role models from the industry. For every industry and every subject, there will already be successful channels in social networks. Please look at them and consider whether you want your track to develop in a similar direction or have something different in mind.
Also Read: Influencer or Not? When A Post Is Advertised On Social Media
Five tips for your channel
Pre-produce content
An essential basic rule for social networks is the regularity with which you post. If the network recognizes that you regularly post new content, it will be displayed more reliably to your followers, and you will not lose followers because they wait in vain for posts from you. This means that you quickly come under pressure to bring something new online. The quality of the posts then suffers as a result. That’s why it’s advisable to pre-produce content and, if you don’t want to worry about anything anymore, to plan using a (free) tool. This can be done, for example, with Facebook Business Manager.
Hashtags and links
A few simple tricks are essential to ensure your channel gets noticed. For example, on Instagram, you should use hashtags (#) to assign your content to topics to be suggested to potential new followers. For example, if you show tools in your pictures, it’s worth linking to the tool manufacturers in the picture. If they like your image, they might post it on their channel, and you can gain many new followers.
Community management
Community what?! Put customer support. Community management is responding to messages and comments on your site. If you don’t do this, you’ll have a much harder time building a successful channel. Your followers assume they have direct contact with you or your company through your channel. If you leave questions unanswered, it will quickly give your site a negative reputation.
Find imagery
If you post many pictures on your channel, it’s worth trying out image editing apps and different filters. But be careful: It’s best not to post too many other filters. Otherwise, your followers might be confused about what content they can expect from you. This quickly leads to them unfollowing your page. So, try out a few image styles and stick with the one you like best.
Stay honest
Although social networks often seem like a make-believe world, authenticity matters. Don’t try to sell yourself or your business as something you’re not. Honesty is appreciated – even online.
Also Read: Social Media Advantages And Disadvantages For Business