6 social media mistakes you can avoid

Genevieve Howard, M EdStrategic Communications Associate II

College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources

University of Missouri

Time for reflectionWhere are you now?

How would you like to improve your social media presence?

Source: “Mirror baby” Creative Commons license via Wikimedia Commons

Not knowing your audience

What is your audience like?

• Practice social listening. What are your clients saying? What do they read? What are they tweeting and retweeting?

• Check your own stats. What gets the most response?

Is your audience valuable?

Image source: Dale Speaking

Is your audience on the phone?

• Almost half of all farmers in the U.S. now use a smartphone, a huge increase from 2010, where farmer smartphone usage was at 10%.

• Customize mobile content for your users.

Stat Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140419164303-98038761-rural-goes-mobile

Image source: United Soybean Board

Know your audience

• What are they like?

• What do they believe in?

• When do they use social media?

• What kind of device do they use for access?

Posting without purpose

What is your purpose?

• What is different about your brand?

• What benefit do people get from associating with you?

How does social media fit?

• How does social media work with your bigger communication strategy?

• Renting (social media) vs. owning (website).

Image source: United Soybean Board

Post with purpose

• Entertain

• Educate

• Inspire

• Promote

Spreading yourself too thin

So many!

Image Source: By Chuckupd [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons

Choose your channel

Choose how you’ll

interact

Start small

Image Source: By donwhite84 [Public domain] Creative Commons license

(You can always add more later.)

Not using an editorial calendar

A calendar will focus your efforts.

Source: donut_p, Creative Commons license

Broad

• Rough idea week to week

Specific

• Actual wording and images for each post, who will post, time to schedule, who will monitor

Timely content to consider

• Prepare for your big times of the year.

• Do you have annual events?

• Do you have milestones to celebrate?

Annual Event examples

• Early promo: social media header

• Boats being built

Sneak peeks(Behind the scenes)

• Boats to look for

During the event: live-tweeting

• I visited with boat makers ahead of time for boat names and Twitter handles.

During the event: live-tweeting

• More than 100 tweets in three hours in 2014.

Post-event

• Social media header

Milestone examples

Missing opportunities

to get seen

Make your bio count

Include:

• Details on your type of business.

• A tone that matches your audience.

• Keywords for your industry.

• Appealing photos.

No header photo

With a header photo

With a header photo

Similar header on Facebook

Make your social media easy to find

Include in your:

• Website

• Email signature

• Blog

• Conference banners and displays

• Business cards

Website examples

Business card

Source: BorceMarkoski, Creative Commons license

Use interesting photos in your posts!

• Photos accounted for 75% of content posted by Facebook pages worldwide.

• Photos get more retweets on Twitter.

• Some social media properties are photo-only: Pinterest and Instagram.

Source: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/photos-generate-engagement-research/

Entertaining

Educational

Inspiring

Promotional

Stay visible

• Use all available space!

• Offer engaging images.

Not keeping up with changes

Intense rate of change

Invest time to know trends

• Follow comparable accounts

• Know the influencers

• Read social media news

My personal toolbox

genevievehoward.com/tools/

(Please note that these are simply provided as a resource; none are endorsed by CAFNR or the University).

In conclusion

1. Know your audience

2. Post with purpose

3. Focus on the few properties you can feed

4. Develop a useful editorial calendar

5. Use visuals everywhere you can: bio & posts

6. Keep up with changes

Thank you!Genevieve Howard, M Ed

@HowGenhowardg@missouri.edu