Social media is not the game of a lucky few. However, it is not for everyone either. Knowing where to focus and when to exit can have a major impact on your social media channels.
If your small business has various social media channels and has been active for many years, then you have probably already considered exiting a few platforms. Sometimes you may have signed up for a platform and then not updated it regularly making it an account which doesn’t have enough followers to warrant frequent status updates but not empty enough to trash.
Such social media channels are now known as ‘zombie’ accounts. They aren’t dead, but they are not brimming with life either. Here are some things to know about killing off your business’ zombie accounts.
One of the main things to identify your social media channels is whether they are a good fit for your brand. For example, different platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest often generate different types of interest and different profiles of customers. Sometimes only focusing on the platforms that are the right fit for you and exiting the others may be the best strategy. In contrast, other times, you may need to establish your niche in another social media channel.
Track your time invested in the social media platforms and the money you spend on creating content for these channels. Knowing exactly how much you are putting in can help you deal with issues and also establish a minimum return you expect.
Studying social media analytics can be complicated. Don’t gather too much data since there is such a thing as too much information, especially for small businesses. It can be easy to lose focus and wander onto areas that your business is not ready for.
Focus on a few important metrics that will determine the success of your social media campaigns. You must look at traffic to your website and conversion to sales, other factors like the number of followers you have or likes on a particular post may not really mean anything in the big scheme of things.
Social media experts also say that knowing when to kill off an inactive channel is very important. Sometimes you may have a considerable number of followers, and it could seem like a bad idea to shut the channel, but there is always a way to retract and humbly. Before closing your zombie social media, you could request your existing followers to connect with you on your other channel and find your website. Or another option would be reviving your Instagram account using automated services such as those recommended by The Small Business Blog.
Sometimes exiting one platform could help you gain a lot of followers and attention in another platform and could be just the thing your business needed.
