The start of a new year, it’s a great time to up your social media game. Whether you’re B2B, B2C, or B2-anyone-who’s-listening, social media should be part of your marketing mix.  And yes, that includes you The Legal Profession!

Here are my top 3 tips for Irish SME’s to improve their social media this year:

1. Give Stuff Away

If you sell product (B2C), give it away.  Run competitions, lots of them.  On platforms like Facebook or Twitter, this is what people want.  We’ve been producing great social media content for Irish brands for a very long time now, and I’m telling you – promotions/competitions is ALWAYS the top performing theme.  Yes they love chatty banter.  And sometimes a bit of informative action (ie. sales).  But what they really want is the chance to win stuff.  So give that to them.

Facebook is a bit saturated in “like and share” competitions, and the alternative is to run with apps, which can be a bit restrictive at times – yet still worthwhile (check our earlier post on Facebook apps). We’re loving Twitter for the utter freedom and wild westy-ness of it.  Try your hand at a ‘flock to unlock’ promotion this year.  Set a number of followers that needs to be reached to unlock a prize, and BAM!, they’re in.

2. Curate Content

Many businesses don’t have the time or money to create content worth sharing. It may seem obvious but have you ever considered sharing interesting content being produced by key people in your industry?  If it’s interesting to you, then it’s likely to be interesting to your audience too.

You can use tools like Buzz Sumo or Creative Commons to find content and images that your audience might be interested in. Put in the effort into researching key influencers or engaging topics from your industry, and it can make the difference when trying to capture the attention of your audience.

[I love this image which reminds us how much happens online every minute. There’s no need to worry about running out of material!]

Image credit: Birger King

3. Get Creative With Your Schedule

New Year, new you? Don’t neglect your business when making those resolutions! A great way to improve your SME social media efforts is to start shaking your content scheduling up a bit. If you weren’t putting much thought into your 2014 status updates, then make 2015 the year you really make it happen.  Test different times of day posting, look at the frequency of your postings and understand what is working, what is not, in order to get your messages out there, and read.  This means keeping a close eye on reach and engagement to measure what is being seen and interacted with.

If you would like to have a conversation about how to put this into action effortlessly, don’t be afraid to get in touch! Good content is what we do, for websites, for apps, and for social media, so we’re always happy to talk!