Testing your ideas

Step 3: Implementation, trial and error.

Step 3 in your social media setup will be the implementation of all the ideas you had in mind for your social media comes to life. Remember, ideas aren't always as practical as you may think, so it’s important to be flexible in this stage and let some of your good ideas go.

Just a recap of Steps one two and tree that I Step 1: Defining your target market, Step 2: Social media Strategy and now step 3: Implementation of your social media strategy.

Implementing your strategy will be hard work, seeking your attention for the first month more than ever. Following the program of your Social Media Strategy alone will not be enough for your business to start building on a active base of users. For this period of time Laaik Us recommends that you use a strategic approach to making your page.

If you have a company logo, use it as a vantage point from where you can create graphic elements for your page like profile pictures and cover photos. Give short and sweet descriptions of your business with all the necessary information and contact details.

Start building up your business using twitter and linking it to other social media platforms like Facebook. By considering the social media guidelines I posted earlier, start following your social media plan. By analyzing the reaction of users, you can easily see what makes your crowd tick. Make sure that your posts are still relevant to your company and not just funny cat pictures.

Be sure to put in evaluating points in your social media strategy to check if it still correlates with the overall goal of your social media. Remember that your goal may change as the needs of your online fans change.

Always remember that you are going to learn continually about your page on how to control and manage it.

Creating a website

For those of you who are interested in creating your own website as well, here is a infograpic created by Laaik Us on how to create your own website. Websites can be made online at different hosting companies like Wix, Google, Weebly and Yola

Engaging with your users.

Corlia le Roux

You have started up your social media and are posting on regular basis, but what is going to make people have a demand to come to your page? Engagement. Engaging with your users can help build online relations that will make your relationship strong so that users will consider you as close as a friend or follower on their social media.

With help from Brian Solis’s guide for brands and businesses to build, cultivate and measure success on the web, called Engage I found a few pointers that might help explain the changing of marketing environment: A fundamental shift in our culture is underway and it’s creating a new landscape of influences  as well as changing how we define influence. The shift is made to conversations that build loyalty but ultimately have an global impact.

The most important part is understanding the role people play in the process and not only the reading of information but also the sharing of information. As I am doing now, the limit to information sharing is very particular and almost only stops when a person’s human rights are involved.

When making a post, in other words sharing information, your listener should engage in conversation to strengthen or debate your opinion. Ask a question that is: a) relevant to your field, b) interesting, c) newsworthy and d) engaging.

With posts this can be done by asking questions to which the user cannot reply yes or no. There doesn't always have to be a question but by simply making a statement engagement can be initiated. For example, if you have a fish business a relevant post about fish legislation can create the engagement you want for people to talk about your product and realize that you care for matters in your field.

 So if you post something like:   “New laws suggest that general fishing should be constricted to seasons.” This may or may not lead to conversation, depending on the closeness of the subject to your online stakeholder. The user may comment or reply with something like: “Finally! Fish species should be kept safe for the future of our children.”

Lessons of your users will also be learned easily trough analyzing their reply. Also be sure to engage with social media pages from the same type of field you’re in.  This is very important and will help you with ideas for your own page. Engaging and getting into conversations in your own field will help to conduct traffic to your page. If people see that you know what you’re talking about they probably would like to hear more of what you’re saying.

Follow me on Facebook at Laaik Us and twitter @LaaikUs to get recent updates about news in social media. You can also send me an e-mail to LaaikUs@gmail.com if you want me to discuss any particular toppic.