Social media is a fascinating thing.  The latest advancements in technology have given businesses opportunities that never existed to generate leads, provide exemplary customer service, see what others in the industry are doing and do some free marketing.   Studies show that businesses that come up with a long term strategy and are consistent with social media marketing efforts see improvement not just in their list of leads, but also their search rankings online.  In short, social media isn’t something that businesses should do, but something that is absolutely necessary in our current times.

While internet marketing professionals are passionate and excited about each opportunity they are presented with to implement a strategy to make a business boom via social media outlets, many small business owners don’t share that same sense of excitement.  To them, finding the time to not just implement the strategies into place but being able to understand how everything works is a stress inducer.   That’s where Social Media Management professionals step in to save the day.

While it’s a necessity to implement some type of a strategy, we here at Mr. Pipeline understand that each company has a limited budget to work with.  That’s why we have a wide variety of plans we can tailor to not just your needs but also your budget.   We’ve provided some advice and tips below on some things you should take into consideration when trying to implement an effective strategy on a budget.

1)  Talk to us about what outlets will be most effective:  While there are constantly hot new social media outlets coming to the surface, the reality is that the average business doesn’t have the time and money to invest in all of them.   Additionally, just because a new application like Snapchat is available doesn’t mean it’s going to do anything to help you with your own business. Sit down with us and discuss your budget and the type of services or products that you offer.   We can from there help you decide upon the social media outlets that make the most sense for us to focus energy on.  As an example, if you own a recruiting business, it may be determined that LinkedIn is an important tool for finding clients. The bottom line is that we want you to get the most for your money and are open to tailoring a plan that will ensure your success.

2) Let us work with a scheduling tool – Did you know that you can drive leads and customer engagement with only several hours of commitment per week via a Social Media Manager?  Thanks to tools such as Hootsuite, we can schedule appropriate material to go out at certain days and times during the week.   This is a great time management strategy that Social Media Managers use to optimize their time and also take your budget into account.

3) Focus on content curation rather than quantity of posting –  If you’re on a budget, it’s better to post one or two relevant, highly interactive posts per day than it is to pay someone twice as much money to post lots of content.    We can sit down with you and come up with the exact end result that you’re looking for and from there come up with highly specific and effective content that will keep your customers coming back for more.

4) Ask your clients/customers for positive reviews/Focus on reputation – Did you know that one of the easiest ways to build your popularity online is by asking past and current customers to give you a glowing review?  The best part of all is that it doesn’t require much work on your part aside from asking them to do so.    Positive reviews on sites such as Yelp will come up in search engine results, helping your business build a great reputation.  People can also give you reviews via your Facebook page if you have one.   A Social Media Manager can help keep these reviews positive and assist you should someone take the opposite route and say something negative about your business.

5) A picture is worth a thousand words – As is any material you already have available to help showcase your business.  If you have blogs, photos or reviews prior to sitting down with us, make sure you bring them with you.   It will save both your Social Media Manager and your wallet to provide us some material to start with.

For more information on how we can assist you in creating an affordable, effective social media strategy, contact us at info@mrpipeline.com