Content is key and all that...
When managing your
social media marketing plan it’s tempting to just throw up the same info in
each outlet. I mean, what if you have a fabulous link that shows just how
amazing The Snuggie really is, are why shouldn’t you post it on Facebook,
Twitter and all the rest?
 |
The answer is that
sometimes you can and sometimes you shouldn’t.
I should be a
politician as I’m waffling here.
Here’s the deal:
most content that
you put out there can be repurposed on different platforms and even at
different times of day. Bit.ly recently released some data on the
best times to post on Facebook and Twitter.
Tweeting on Monday
between 12-2 pm CST results in the most retweets. Twitter traffic peaks Monday
through Thursday from 8-2 pm and Tweets pushed out after 3 on Friday less
likely to reach your audience or be retweeted. Same goes for office meetings; I
once saw an entire accounting department kill and eat a junior account
executive who scheduled a meeting at 3:30 on the Friday before Labor Day
weekend.
As far as Facebook
goes, links posted between 12-3 pm result in the highest click through rate and
weekly traffic peaks at about the same time. Posting before 8am or after 8pm
may be wasted.
Now of course this
isn’t written in stone because that’s just silly when we have perfectly good
paper. Try and keep to this schedule for a bit and then vary it a little to see
if anything changes.
Guy Kawasaki,
internet guru and former Apple brand evangelist, has said that he schedules the
same Tweet to go out a few times in a single day. I’m not sure I agree with
that, as it just seems a bit lazy. I’ve tried scheduling the same Tweet on
subsequent days and it seemed to work better.
Now as far as
content goes it’s a good idea to vary it across platforms. What you post on
Facebook may not be as appropriate on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a bit like the
older sister of Facebook and tends to favor informational posts rather than
entertaining content. Facebook is fertile ground for fun stuff as well as
information. You’d call Facebook to bring the keg and LinkedIn to post your
bail, more or less.
Twitter, well
Twitter would show up, eat all the Cheetos and then leave. But he’s
entertaining, so you don’t mind. And Google +? He’s the guy who claims to have
friends, has lots of money, and you should probably pay attention to him in
case he gets more interesting.
Bottom line is
this:
-Vary your content
across the various social networks.
-Content can be
the same at times, just re-purposed. A blog on your site can be turned into a video for
YouTube.
-Link content
together. If you find a link suitable for Pinterest (including your own
content) push it out there while linking the pin to your Facebook account.
-Sometimes it’s
just fine to get on Hootsuite and push the same content to all your outlets if
you just want to keep your presence alive but don’t have the time to repurpose.
If you generate
interest in your content you’ll attract more interest if you vary that content.
If a potential customer finds you and wants to know more you’ll be better off
if what they find is informative, entertaining and just a bit different each
time they look.
