How to reduce the pressure when posting to social media

Whether it’s your corporate Twitter account or your business’ LinkedIn Company page, there is no hiding that regular posts maintain brand awareness and keep you front of mind with your followers - especially as part of an integrated marketing campaign.

You also create opportunities to connect with your customers and colleagues and in turn, build rapport.

This can’t be beaten - genuine relationship building that generates trust, which can ultimately lead to new business.

So, consistency is key to making an impact.

What if you don’t have the time?

This is where the pressure kicks in. It hangs over you - that need to post every day, twice a day, three times.

There isn’t a golden rule and no instructions - social media engagement is a fluid thing.

If the pressure kicks in and you don’t have a structured approach to posting to social media, you’ll find yourself tweeting and posting anything and everything without thought to your followers or the purpose of your business.

“But it’s still content - we have to be ‘seen’!”

But it’s not quality content. Equally posting in quantity and for the sake of it isn’t a strategic approach, nor is posting the same content verbatim over and over. Of course, not every one of your followers will see every post every time you hit ‘send’, but copying and pasting the same text is brand damaging…

Why bother with social media?

From a marketing perspective, branded social media channels offer a way to:

• raise brand awareness

• create conversation

• generate new business

• maintain repeat business

• build your employer brand

• drive content marketing to a wider network

• support campaign-led activity

• share your personality and your business identity

• and more…

It takes time to produce well-structured posts that attract attention. So, if you can't invest in external marketing support to help you, and posting every day is too much, then stop posting.

Stop

Take a breath and consider the benefits of using social media. Think of quality content - that is useful - that you could be posting every other day, or every two to three days. This could be brand-led content, curated content, company updates, conversation starters etc. Social media posting can be seen as micro-blogging - there’s real benefit to using content to help generate new business if that content is crafted well and in-line with your offering.

Quality content outweighs quantity every time, especially if you can't post as regularly as you'd like to. You don’t want to bowl your followers over with poor content for the sake of it - they'll soon get bored. You equally damage your brand as a result.

Thereafter you can pitch in on the engagement side. Engage with your followers when they comment or reply to you - social media should be conversational and less about the broadcast. Get involved in a conversation if you can add value and bring something to the table. But you need to establish consistency and quality in your regular posts first before you can take on the engagement side.

The takeaways:

• Determine what quality content looks like.

• Drip feed a consistent flow of this quality content in a pattern that suits you and your followers.

• Think about how you can recycle and repurpose the content so your social channels stay fresh if you repeat from week to week.

• Pitch in on conversations - connect with those that show interest in your posts, establish rapport and build on those relationships.

This approach will help you maintain your brand's voice, create engagement and raise awareness of what you do. Better still, devise a roadmap of marketing activity that includes key campaigns with integrated social posting, and further consider where social media marketing can add value. This is fundamental for a branded/corporate account.

Then when you do happen to come across something to share that’s topical for example, and more spontaneous, it’ll be entertaining and engaging over and above the consistent, quality content you’ve been posting in a less pressured but more structured way.