As a follow-up to last week’s article ‘5 Steps to a Successful Start on Social Media‘, today we will go deeper into the intricacies of using social media outlets for your private label supplement business.
Now that you’ve set up profiles across the relevant networks, have an established tone of voice and a strategy, you are ready to start posting and interacting on a daily basis. Here are the main things to consider at this stage and which tools to use to make social media interaction easy.
Your social media management entails two main activities: to listen and to share.
Listen
It cannot be stressed enough that social media is a dynamic environment in which users interact nonstop. And in interacting they voice their joys, successes, concerns and sometimes even their straightforward criticism. As a brand, it is important for you to stay on track with what people are saying about you or to you.
Studies have shown that there is a great likelihood for people to voice problems on social media. Not only that, but if they have addressed someone, they expect a timely response (for example, 50% of Twitter users expect a response within 2 hours). Online support is therefore a must for any business that seeks to maximize on their social media presence and build a reliable and respectable brand image.
But support can only be given if you are aware that it is needed. Here’s where ‘social media listening’ comes into the picture. Social media listening means carefully following and picking up signals across social media and responding to them. Check out the tool below – it could greatly improve the way you listen to your networks and help you decrease the time it takes for you to respond.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is designed to help you listen to all the social media channels you are using. With Hootsuite you can monitor:
- Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn
- Any ‘mention’, message, comment or link on your profiles
- Hashtags or links that concern your business or industry
Additionally, you can respond to all comments, messages and mentions of your brand directly through the tool. Hootsuite ‘basic’ is entirely free and provides you with 5 accounts, which is more than enough if you are using it only for your own brand. Paid plans offer more accounts and more options.
Share
As pointed in the previous article on social media, the amount of posts you should publish on each network varies. For Twitter a maximum of 10 per day, for Facebook not more than 2. But if you limit your content to only promoting yourself you’ll see little to no results.
The primary use of social media outlets is not to circulate direct and aggressive forms of marketing. Instead, what users look for is value. Value is derived from posting content which is not strictly related to your business’s activity, but which is still compelling and useful for your audience. This is called curated content.
Curated content is interesting, relevant and valuable. For you as a private label supplement retailer, all of these fall within this category:
- industry news
- developments around dietary supplements
- authoritative articles
- scientific studies
Such content will increase your authority and will nurture your reputation as a reliable and engaging source of information. It will build trust towards your brand and will also keep you visible on users’ timelines and feeds. Presence is not to be underestimated. Make use of the following tools to achieve it:
Feedly
Feedly is a content aggregation tool. It allows you to search for content or add the RSS feeds of websites which you are already using. Once you’ve added the feeds, Feedly will display all content which appears on these websites. That way you will have a long stream of the latest articles or news, which you can easily browse through to pick the most interesting and relevant materials.
Buffer
Once you’ve created your Feedly, you can turn to Buffer. Buffer is a comprehensive and handy tool that lets you schedule posts across social media. Installing the Buffer extension will allow you to instantly add articles which you find in your Feedly to one of your social media accounts. With Buffer you can also schedule the amount of daily posts you publish in every network, as well as at what time during the day they should be posted.
Followerwonk
Finally, Followerwonk allows you to pick the best times to post your curated content. Sign in with your Twitter account, go to ‘Analyze followers’, enter your Twitter handle and select the ‘analyze their followers’ option.
Followerwonk will tell you the times during which your followers are most active. Since it is integrated with Buffer, you can tell Followerwonk to create your Buffer schedule for you, based on the times your followers are the most active.
But if you don’t have that many followers, this may present itself as a problem. Consult the following infographic in determining the best times for your posts while your following is still not big enough for you to use Followerwonk.
Conclusion
If you are entirely new to social media, don’t be disheartened. The tools presented in this article are meant to simplify your work, not the opposite.
Once you have the system all set up and going, it will save you a lot of time and effort, and will automate a great deal of your tasks, leaving only the most essential up to you – to engage and communicate with your audience.
Stay tuned for Part 3 where we will explore the most common business mistakes on social media and how to avoid them.
Private Label Supplement focuses on offering expert service to supplement retailers that are in need of marketing solutions. From packaging and labeling to marketing strategies, we can help you out. Contact our sales team at 855-209-0225 ext. 2 or email us at sales@privatelabelsupplement.com to get started today.
All my best,
Stefani Thionnet
Stay focused and never give up!
