Short Sharp Social Media Success

Andy Lawrence runs WholesaleHelp.co.uk, a site which aims to help you with everything you need to know about wholesale sourcing and dropshipping. Today he looks at how to efficiently use Social Media without allowing it to eat up every hour of your working day.

You can connect with Andy on Twitter or of course at WholesaleHelp.co.uk. You’ll also currently catch a weekly series of tips and tricks from Andy on the Wholesale Help YouTube channel.

Short Sharp Social Media Success

Social media is a highly effective way to drive traffic to your eCommerce website or auction listings, but in order to do this effectively you need to plan, schedule and execute that plan carefully to get the most from it.

This may sound difficult or time consuming but it isn’t either, once you have worked out your best strategy then you can carry it out very easily and effectively with impressive results.

Social media makes up over half of the website traffic to my blog Wholesale-Help.com so I can safely say it makes a big difference to my traffic levels, if you are one of those that think “it probably won’t make much difference” then think again!

Here’s what you need to do..

Consistency

This type of marketing is only effective if you build momentum and keep the content going consistently so you need to decide which social platforms will work for you and stick to the schedule you create. We’re not talking prize winning content here it doesn’t have to be war and peace far from it in fact, fresh content can be simply re-tweeting an interesting post or hitting the share button next to a blog post you found helpful. Whatever you post or tweet it should be on a regular basis, this is the real key to social media.

Don’t Over Commit

There are so many social platforms available these days it’s easy to end up with seven different accounts and unless you have 45 hours in a day you will not be able to make use of all them effectively. If you have enough time to commit to all of them then you are probably neglecting other areas of your business which totally defeats the object so pick one, two or three platforms you like and know you can update regularly and then focus on them. This is a far more effective approach compared to updating more platforms less often.

Focus

It is very easy to get distracted on social media sites, especially Facebook, so you must be strict with your time on there. If you have decided to spend 10 minutes updating Facebook each day then that’s what you need to do, if you get distracted looking at “epic fail ” compilations or videos of cats that look like Hitler then you have lost the benefit of the site by losing your productivity. Decide how much time you need to make a difference on a particular site and stick to it, set an alarm on your watch or phone if you need to, then you can close the site and move on to the next task.

Interact

Interaction is beneficial in many ways, firstly you will be creating easy content and updates just by having a conversation and secondly you will quickly identify the influential people in your niche and engaging with them that will bring you even more visibility and ultimately more traffic.

Do it on the go

One of the great things about social media is that it is everywhere, on your phone, your tablet, your laptop even your games console and because of this it can integrate into your daily life.
You don’t need to sit down at your desk every time you update your social media, in fact it’s a great asset to your strategy if you can find downtime in your day and fill it with 3 minutes of Twitter interactions for example.

All of us have time where not much is going on where we can pull out our mobile phone and re-tweet something, “like” something or update a status.. On the train, waiting for a bus, waiting in the car to pick up a daughter or wife, sitting downstairs by the door waiting for your daughter or wife to get ready, on those uncomfortable chairs outside ladies changing rooms. In fact if you have a daughter or wife then you probably have lots of down time!
All sexist jokes aside these are great opportunities to make use of dead time and grow your business while keeping up your consistency.

Make use of the tools

A great tool to save you heaps of time is Buffer, if you happen to find a load of great content you want to share then you can use this very handy free tool that allows you to load up several posts at one time and it will then post them to the social networks of your choice on a regular schedule that you can also set to your own needs.

It’s just a one click tool that sits next to the tweet button or post button and will simply send it to the buffer website to be held there until your next schedule slot when it is then posted. This is another great way to keep up the momentum without having to be chained to the interwebs.

So in essence you need to find your own schedule that works for you, get involved with the users in your niche, tweet outside ladies changing rooms, keep up the momentum and you will reap the rewards in a pretty short time.