Four Social Media Hurdles to Jump; and How Visual Thrive Gives You a Leg Up

Visual Thrive is a boutique social media agency delivering high-end business-centric social media. Our approach is, and will always be, to speak openly and authentically with businesses that want to work with us. We believe a rising tide raises all ships, and we approach all of our work with this in mind.

Before we jump into how we raise our clients, let me say that more often than not, clients tell us about their less-than-stellar experiences working with marketing agencies. The agency that did their graphic design or their website tells them they can handle their social media. They can’t, and they don’t do it well.

The client ends up spending a boatload of money, and they decide to stay on their island forever, defending themselves “against” the process of creating a fantastic social media narrative. This is a hurdle for both of us.

Social media is a business’ MUST DO, just like a website was thirty years ago. (Yes, it was 30 years ago!) If you want to move your company into the full-speed-ahead mode, social media needs to be within your budget, can help. Substantive social media companies will rise to the top. (That’s us! ;-)

PUT YOUR BUSINESS ON THE RIGHT SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM(S)

Hurdle #1: If your business is a B2C, business-to-consumer, understanding which social media platforms are best to attract the attention of consumers is essential. In general, Facebook and Instagram will be your choice, but it also depends on a few more considerations that could help your conversions. If your company is a B2B, commerce between businesses, which includes e-commerce, we would evaluate social media on LinkedIn. Our position is that we never want to ignore any channel, and Twitter is no different. The considerations to make are: Where are your business networks? Where do you want them to be? What are social media strengths already available? For example, if you have a business page on LinkedIn with 200+ Followers, did you know you can target industries and markets? Deciding which platforms are best for your company is your first hurdle. We can help you with that. 

GET GREAT VISUALS

Hurdle #2: The key factor for social media – above and beyond anything else – is great visuals. Photos or videos rule! Visuals get 94% more views, and 90% of information sent to the brain is visual. Visuals are also quite compelling when it comes to creating conversions for calls-to-action. When you think about your company, what visuals come to mind? Whether you sell goods or services (and sometimes both!), there is a picture that comes to mind or a story you’d like to tell, when you think about your work. We wrote another blog post about how to take the best photos for your social media feed…. Check it out.

GET GREAT CONTENT

Hurdle #3: OK, you’ve got the visual piece down, but that’s not all you need. Visuals need to be paired with consistent, relevant content. When we write for our clients, we base the content on our clients’ strategic vision. We really want to know what will have our clients celebrating at the end of the year. With every single client we have, we know what their optimal goals are, and we focus our business-centric content on influencing those goals within everything we write. Here are some goals our clients have:

·      To educate their audience on what they do, so when they show up a chunk of their work is done.

·      To be acquired.

·      To increase its customer base by 100.

·      To demonstrate their innovation and ability to serve the community.

·      To have over 2,000 Followers

DON’T FORGET HASHTAGS

You see, every business, just like every person, has unique goals. What will have you drinking champagne at the end of this year? We execute based on your goal, not ours!

Hurdle #4: Hashtags. Where to begin with hashtags… You can’t live without hashtags on social media, but you need to have the right amount of hashtags, the right amount of characters per hashtag, and every social media channel has a different ideal. Not too many or you’ll look desperate, one or two, and you’ll look like you don’t know anything; unless you’re on Twitter. This hurdle includes figuring out where your company falls within hashtag world once you’ve jumped the first three hurdles.

The purpose of hashtags is to allow anyone to find your stuff. Some of the popular hashtags include #photooftheday, great for those looking for the daily boost of a cool photo; or #usedcar, which will show you where the used cars live; or #visualthrive, which will show you everything Visual Thrive posts. We always use the name of our client’s company as their first hashtag.

There are so many things to think about in our world, and we focus on taking all of this out of your hands, so you can focus on YOUR world!

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