Are Your Customers Goldfish?

Are your customers goldfish? In other words, do they have short attention spans?

Probably!

Mobile devices have made multitasking the norm. When aren’t we looking at a screen….checking email, streaming live videos, checking social media updates? You get the picture. Your customers are doing this….just like you are. And we’re doing this while we’re doing something else, like watching a TV show, cooking, or even holding a conversation.

It should come as no surprise that the average human attention span has fallen to just eight seconds….shorter than that of a goldfish.

Because of customer’s short attention span, your content must be short, clear and to the point. And not just the content of your website. Everything must be written to catch attention quickly. This includes your social media posts and even your printed brochures.

How do you create content that gets read?

Write quality content

Make sure that the content you are putting out is of high quality. Use your keywords so your pages and posts are found in online searches.

Know what your customers will read. If you’re having trouble coming up with blog topics, look at the questions your customers have asked. That’s a great place to get ideas for future blogs. You could conduct a survey of your current customers to ask them what they want to read about.

Use visual content

Studies have shown that readers spend more time looking at images than words on a webpage. Images also promote greater memory recall than text alone.

There are different types of visual content you can use to draw attention to your content and keep your readers engages.

For blogs, use images that relate to the topic you are blogging about. On your website, use images to break up all your text.

Videos are also a great way to use visual content to capture customer’s attention. Videos can be used on your website and on your social media posts.

Make it easy to read

Whether it’s your blog or a webpage, if you make it easy for your readers to skim, they’ll happily consume your content.

Include white space for the reader’s eyes to rest. Use bullet points. A list is a great way to get information out in short sentences.

Use headers and bolded text. Headers can direct a reader to a section they are particularly interested in. Bolded text will draw attention to the information you feel is important.

When Is The Best Time to Post?

Timing is everything. You want to post on social media at the times your audience is around to see the posts. Naturally, the larger the audience that you can reach, the more opportunities you have to gain new followers and customers, boost engagement and drive traffic to your website.

So, when are the best times to post on social media?

It depends on the audience you’re trying to reach, the social media platforms you’re using, your marketing goals and the type of content you are posting.

While there is no perfect time to post, here are some tips that can help you find the best times for your business.

The best time to post to Facebook

Facebook has a complicated News Feed algorithm which makes is more difficult to get the timing right for posting. One good piece of news is that a Facebook post has a 90-minute ‘shelf life’ which increases the chances of it being seen by your followers.

Hootsuite’s research shows that the best times to post on Facebook is between 12:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. And between 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

Remember, it’s always best to test different times and track your results using the data you can get from Facebook’s Page Insights to determine when your audience is viewing your Facebook posts.

The best time to post on Twitter

The ‘shelf life’ of a tweet is only 24 minutes. So, you have a small window of opportunity to reach your target audience.

According to Hubspot, the best times to post on Twitter are 12:00 p.m. and 3:00 pm., Monday to Friday.

The best time to post on Instagram

Instagram’s posts appear in feeds based on whether the audience will be interested in the content. This means that photos and videos with a lot of Likes and comments will be near the top of the feed.

Hootsuite says that the best time to post on Instagram is 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m., Monday to Friday. Yes, it sure looks like everybody spends their lunch hour checking this site!

Other things you should consider

When trying to determine the best times to post on any social media platform, you need to think about time zones. If your target audience spans many time zones, that can affect your results.

If you are a B2C organization, you may see that posts published on the weekends get more traction. If you are a B2B company, your best results may be during working hours, Monday to Friday.

Use these times as a starting guide, but always measure your results to see if you really are posting at the right times for your audience.

How to Deal With Negative Customers on Social Media

As a small business, you are marketing yourself on various social media platforms. This is a good thing. But, anytime you post and give your readers a platform where they can comment about your products or services, you do have some risk.

When you allow your readers to comment on your posts you could get a bad review or a damaging comment. And these negatives are out there on the Internet for everyone to see.

While you can’t completely avoid negative comments on social media, you can plan on how to respond to it in a professional manner. This will reflect well on your brand.

Set up Google Alerts

You want to know what people are saying about your company. If you can’t see their comments, how will you know?

It’s easy to set up Google Alerts to notify you when your brand has been mentioned online. This will give you a chance to respond, if necessary.

Step back

Don’t take everything posted in your comments so seriously. Sometimes negative comments are just a by-product of the world we now live in. People feel safe making negative comments online because it’s sort of anonymous and they just don’t think about the effects of what they are saying online.  Some people intentionally malign individuals and companies online just to get a rise out of them. Don’t play into their wacko plans.

You have to avoid letting people’s comments get to you. Sometimes, you just have to ignore things and let them go.

Don’t be defensive

It’s difficult to not feel defensive when facing a negative comment about your company – especially one that you don’t feel is accurate. Remember that everything you post online is visible to everyone so you can’t afford to get defensive and go after the person who made the comment. This will make you look like a bully, which isn’t healthy for your company’s image.

Acknowledge when you’ve made a mistake

It is possible that a negative comment about your business is justified. If that is the case, you need to quickly give an apology to the affected person and make a promise to do better in the future.

While using social media is a great way to promote your small business, you have to keep an ear to the digital ground and identify and respond to comments about your company so that your time promoting your small business on social media isn’t wasted.

How to Avoid Social Media Mistakes for Your Small Business

We’re all plugged into social media. It’s a daily part of our lives. We post and share information on Facebook and Instagram; we tweet about our lives and our businesses on Twitter; we look for jobs on LinkedIn; and we post and watch videos on YouTube.

There are more than 1.71 billion monthly active users just on Facebook so your small business should seriously look at having a presence on Facebook if you don’t already.

It’s so easy to make mistakes on social media when it comes to posting for your business. Here are some tips to avoid making mistakes with your small business social media posts.

Be focused

There are dozens of great social media platforms available and some of them are pretty strong. It’s tempting to be active on all of them. Unless you have a great social media team working for you, you won’t be able to successfully make an impact on all of the social media platforms.

If you try to be everywhere, you will quickly be overwhelmed. It’s best to choose 2 or 3 social media platforms that would work for your business. Knowing who your target audience is will help you choose which social media channels will work for your small business.

Be consistent

Most small business owners don’t have time to post every day. If they have free time, they’re tempted to post several times during that day. This is not the best way to make use of social media or your time.

Create a social media content calendar and stick to it. There are many tools, such as Hootsuite, that allow you to schedule your posts to different social media platforms. Your readers will come to expect a post from you on the same day and time each week. Don’t disappoint them.

Use spell check

You want to present a professional image on social media so make sure your posts are free of spelling errors and grammatical mistakes.

Make sure your reread your content before publishing it to ensure it is perfect.

Be social

You’re on social media so be social with your followers. Responding to comments and questions is important. You want to engage your followers and this is the way to do it.

Are you ready to leap into social media for your small business? If you need help, Blue Dog Marketing can assist you in creating a content calendar and even writing your posts for you. Give us a call!

Do You Have a Social Media Calendar?

As business owners, we’re all busy. When we’re busy, we need to have a plan in place so tasks get done even if we forget about them.

Successful social media requires you to regularly post on your social media platforms.

A social media calendar helps you get organized. You won’t be scrambling when your next post is due! If you use your social media calendar the right way, you can plan your posts weeks, or even months, in advance.

By having a great post on hand to post will save you time. No having to search online for a great post to share or frantically write something last minute.

With a social media calendar, you can plan your posts for each social media platform instead of using the same thing for each one. You can also plan for holidays and such fun days as National Beer Day.

Your social media calendar can be in something as simple as an Excel spreadsheet if that works for you. Just set it up as a calendar and put your topic titles in each day you want to post. In Excel you can even paste your posts into a column so you have them for reference and you can re-promote past content.

The next step is to spend a few hours writing all your posts for the month. Then it’s done and you just have to post them on the day they are due.

Get your social media organized and you’ll be more likely to stick to your schedule. And your readers will love you for it!