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The no-nonsense guide to social media success
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Sharing our insights and experience we've gained with 200+ lawyers.
Find out how to be successful on social media as an accountant or financial advisor.
Learn how to stand out on social media as a recruiter.
Book DemoThe no-nonsense guide to social media success
Sharing our insights and experience we've gained with 200+ lawyers.
Find out how to be successful on social media as an accountant or financial advisor.
Learn how to stand out as a recruiter on social media.
The key to maintaining and growing an audience is consistency and intertwined with that volume. Today, only 1% - yes I came up with that number myself - of all Professional Service Providers is consistent on social media. This is the first thing that will set you apart from the others.
But what parts of your social media posting have to be consistent? What do I mean specifically? The first part is: posting every week at a consistent rate. Never leaving a gap. Always having something out there. Consistently showing up in your audience’s feed. It’s also the key to be remembered and stick in people’s minds. The second one: Consistency in the language you use, the visuals you use, and the tone of voice. This is a bit more vague and harder to grasp. Don’t worry though, I’ll explain later.
Start by listing all the special moments taking place in your organization, in the lives of your clients or in your own life. Launching a new product? Welcoming a new hire? Your clients have to pay their taxes?
Next, plot all these moments on a calendar.These moments can turn into posts later that month. I call these moments “events”, since they are unique and only happen now and then.
Besides those unique events you should always create some extra spots in your social media calendar to provide value. I’ll explain in detail what this looks like in the pillar “Content Mix”.
Maintaining a social media calendar lets you plan ahead, batch your work, avoid multitasking, and note down all your creative brainwaves for later. You and your team need to commit to how often and what you will be posting. Without this plan at the start of every month you’ll be lost.
Basically it’s the best way to make sure you’ll never find yourself desperately scrolling through generic inspirational quotes hoping to find something to post ever again.
Before you know it, you’ll be posting multiple times a week, without needing to babysit your social media feeds constantly.
A much debated question. How often should I post per week? This might already come
as a shock to you. Multiple times per week? Yup, that sounds about right. The biggest reason is that one single post per week will only reach a fraction of your followers. Not everyone will get to see that post in their timeline. Unless you always get crazy engagement.
LinkedIn itself recommends posting every business day on their platform. Other platforms haven’t put out any recommendations. We recommend posting 4-5 times a week. But doing that every week can be difficult when you’re starting out. Remember:Quality over quantity. If you can’t commit to posting 2 quality posts every week, you certainly won’t start posting 4. So instead of just filling 4 posting slots with subpar content, post 2-3 quality ones.
It’s good to set a realistic goal. Of course if you’re comfortably posting twice a week, surely doubling that won’t be a big change for you?
Crush. One. Channel. At. A. Time. Distributing your focus between all your social media channels at the same time will likely not succeed. Why? Each of them requires a specific approach and specific types of posts. For example, you can’t just share articles or blog links on Instagram. Interpret researched what people are looking for on each platform. Here’s what they found.
LinkedIn is still the go-to-platform right now for B2B and expertise-driven businesses. It has been for a while now.
And here’s some good news. Today there is still a way on LinkedIn to reach a decent number of people and get good engagement. The biggest reason? There is still little content to show in people’s timelines compared to Facebook. But it’s changing rapidly. Newer content types on Linkedin like Linkedin Live and Linkedin Events are also incentivizing people to create more content.
Facebook is getting a bad rap, but is now often being overlooked. While the younger generations might have left the building (or that’s what they want you to believe), yes, they are still checking their Facebook. Older generations are still very active on Facebook. So there’s definitely a case there. The rule for Facebook is, your content always has to show faces or be entertaining. Question is, can you deliver such content week-in-week-out?
Twitter is a different animal altogether. The more you tweet, the better. The more you favorite and RT other tweets, the better. To be honest, there’s quite some untapped traffic in Twitter. Specifically, trends and topics. Twitter gives you a convenient list of Trends that you can really exploit. Tweeting about a trending topic gives your content a good chance to ride the wave. So if you have a channel that already has some following, don’t give up on it. Twitter also works well for personal stories. Just create Threads by replying to the previous tweet. It’s also one of the best platforms to interact with your target audience, look for people talking about your interest or your company, and then just start a conversation with them.
Instagram works well if you have a lot of team buzz, a visual product to sell. Think real estate, architecture, etc. If you only have an office or remote work place, it will probably get visually boring quite quickly. Though, there are some amazing examples of lawyers sharing valuable advice through short videos on Instagram.
Quick tip: Newer content types have a better reach than existing content types.The first mover advantage is real. Try out Linkedin Live and Linkedin Events before they lose their sheen.
There are a gazillion brands on social media trying to get the precious attention of people online. So, making your message stick has probably never been more difficult. But on the other hand, it’ll never be this easy again. So here’s how you can stand out with your branding consistently.
Start with building your brand persona. If you have been in business for quite some time, you can even ask a few of your customers how they perceive you. What words come in to their heads when they think of your brand? That’s a great starting point.
Next, figure out the visual elements that complement that persona. It doesn’t have to be a complete brand guide. Just figure out a color palette, some visual elements (patterns, shapes, pictures) to go with it. Needless to say, it’s easier to stand out with brighter colors, but if your brand warrants a more sober outlook, stick with that.
