Are you one of the many logistics businesses hesitant to use social media? Maybe you feel not enough of your customers and carriers are on social media, or there aren’t enough hours in the day. However, it IS possible to have a successful social media presence without disrupting your regular business or spending a lot of money.
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If you want to use social media in a more personalized way but not waste valuable time, here are some basic tips to succeed.
- Set a Goal:
What do you want to accomplish by using social media? Clearly define your goals and how you plan to measure them. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, website traffic, grow your email list, etc.? Clear goals will help you determine the type of content you should publish and on what platforms.
- Know Your Audience:
Who are you trying to reach, and which social media platform is the best way to reach them? This will help you determine where you should spend time (see the platform overview at the end of this article). Once you get started, check the analytics of your page to see if you are attracting the right audience. On Facebook you can even look at when your users are online to determine the best times of the day to post.
- Keep it Short:
Lengthy content should be on your website, not in a social media post. Keep your posts short and to the point.
- Make it Interesting:
An image or graphic will highlight your content better and increase the chance that your audience will read, like, or share your post.
- Mix it Up:
Try to balance educational logistics topics with inspirational, personal, or funny posts. Informational content brings value to your followers and will increase your credibility, but people love to share inspirational images and quotes. These posts tend to get more likes and shares. Customers and carriers also want to get to know you. Post about your team and employees!
- Trust the Source:
One of the easier ways to stay active on social media is to find and share content already published. Just make sure it is a known and trusted source, not just your neighbor Bob’s opinion blog. Keep in mind if you are sharing someone else’s content, you are also sending that website traffic to someone else’s site which is not ideal. So, don’t do this for all of your posts.
- Be Social:
Remember to interact with others, not just push your content to others. Share articles, follow people and companies, and then like their posts so you can participate in the social aspect. Social media is the online version of networking, so incorporate some give and take. I pick up new page views and followers each time I spend 5 minutes liking other people’s posts.
- Learn From It:
Monitor how your posts are doing so you can better serve your audience. Are certain topics or posts better liked and shared? Give them more of what they like!
- Measure It:
What goals did you establish in the beginning? Make sure to measure how you are hitting your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and adjust your approach if the results aren’t measuring up.
Social media can be a great tool to reach a wider audience and to reinforce your value with customers and carriers. If this still sounds like too much, you can always choose a marketing partner to handle your social media presence for you.
SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM OVERVIEW:
Where should you spend your time online? Here is our brief overview on the three most popular sites for financial advisors.
LinkedIn is known as the professional social media platform. This is a great place to connect with current and future business partners or recruit for carriers. You can sponsor your content and select industries, titles, cities, etc., that you want to target. Many people will feel more comfortable connecting on LinkedIn rather than on Facebook. Follow us on LinkedIn.
Facebook is a great place to market to the general consumer. You would be surprised by how many people are on Facebook. It has the most engaged users: 70% log on daily, including 43% log on several times a day! Facebook is also a good site for your personal friends and contacts to get familiar with what you do. Remember to set up a business page and ask for likes there. Trying to ‘friend’ a prospect or client can been seen as invasive and too personal.Follow us on Facebook.
Twitter is a great place to interact with other businesses and to find informative articles that may interest your audience. Connecting with prospects isn’t the primary goal on this platform. Since it is all about short-form (280 characters or less), it is the best place to find and share industry insights and initiate discussions with fellow logistics professionals. Utilizing a trending hashtag in your tweet allows you to gather a lot of views on this platform.Follow us on Twitter.
Instagram is a visual social platform that tends to have a younger audience. Since the platform is photo and video based, you will need to be prepared to create visually pleasing and engaging content if you want to use this platform. And create a business profile so you can access your audience demographics and have advertising options. You can look at the Instagram business guide to learn more: LINK
