Well I'm kind of on the fence with this! Part of me is like its the digital age you have to have a social media presence of some sort, but then the other part of me is very much into simplicity and running a business that you love! So I'm not much help if its true or if its false.  For me I don't like spending a lot of time on platforms such as facebook, instagram, Twitter, I dont even have TicTok to be honest. BUT I do use these platforms to market my businesses. 

One thing I quickly will say is the best time to market on social media without actually having to go on it, is to use scheduling apps. I use Later and I absolutely love it, they have a free introductory plan that you can use. I use this app a lot because I dont really want to be going on social media because you know its the scroll hole, you see things you dont want to see. So instead of actually scheduling it on the platform itself I will use a scheduling app. 🗓️

Make A Marketing Strategy Plan for the Year

The key thing in order for you to not have to spend an awful lot of time on these platforms is creating a marketing strategy every single year! I am the kind of person who will be influenced but what I am seeing on social media and TBH it does affect my mood, if all I am seeing online is doom and gloom guess what? My marketing plan will reflect this as I won't be in the mood, I won't have the high vibes mood!

So I make sure to do my marketing plan when I am in a high vibe mood, usually at the end of the year, usually I'm having some time off, I'm loving life and I will sit and do a yearly strategy! 

Now I know you might be thinking, Steph a marketing strategy plan for the year? Are you insane! How on earth am I going to do that? Well I'm going to tell you now! 👇

Be Mindful of the Content you Consume

What makes you laugh and comment, engage and share posts, pictures, videos or whatever. Be mindful of that and take notes, because if you are finding these posts engaging then why can't you use some of that into your own marketing strategy? 

What is Your Goal?

Is it to increase sales, get more followers? Write it down, what would be your goal this time next year for your social media marketing? Be specific and clear, do you want to reach out and get new people into your world, or do you want to reach your existing followers? Be really really clear what your goal is. 

I just wanted to share my Social Media Power Pack with you guys, it is an exclusive power pack for £19.99, it is basically showing you how to market on social media, I am giving you the plan, 12 months plus of social media prompts, bonuses and all the good things. Here's the link below, it is a digital product with instant access https://www.handmadebosses.com/mini-power-pack-sales

Research your Target Market on the Platform that you are Using?

You should be able to list 5 struggles that they are having off the top of your head, 5 things that they love. That is how much connectivity you should have with your target audience on the platform you are using because you are going to be posting content.

Content doesn't have to be blog posts, it doesn't have to be anything like that but when you are posting pictures, captions, hashtags, status', what ever you post online that is your content. So when people are talking about content, posts, images that is what they mean.

For you to really engage more with your target audience you really need to know for the specific platform that they are using and what you're planning for you have to know what their top 5 struggles are, what they love, what they value, what they believe in what their pain points are? You have to know WHO THEY ARE! 🤔

You might be saying Steph this is who my target audience is, but it is it platform specific and I find that this is one big thing that people dont realise is that this can change from platform to platform. So research your target market and tailor your content towards them, what they struggle with what they like and what content they will engage with. 😍

Research your Competitors Social Media

How often are they posting, who are they tailoring their content towards, what are they doing,  how are they reaching out , how are they getting engagement on their posts? And perhaps the most important question for you to answer is where is their opportunity, because  believe it or not your competitors are human being themselves and there are going to be gaps in their social media content marketing. So identify what they are, what are they not doing that perhaps the target market wants that you could be doing instead? 

Do a social Media Audit

The social media power pack can help you with this, here's the link if you want to grab that now https://www.handmadebosses.com/mini-power-pack-sales.

What are you already doing? What is working, not working, what's just a bit meh! What is getting engagement, what's getting clicks, views to your Etsy shop or your website? I want you to look at this and adjust if needed. 📝

All of these 5 things will help you make a social media strategy for your year so that you don't have to spend all your time on social media but still have a presence on their even if you hate it! 

If you'd prefer me to visually teach you this blog post, then you can watch it HERE.

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