In case you didn’t notice, it’s about to be “pumpkin spice everything” season. Fall is in the air, and the holidays aren’t far off. And in the spirit of giving, we’re handing over a few secrets to social media success.

No thanks necessary.

You see, social media can be an incredible tool for reaching your customer base and new followers. It also gives you multiple touchpoints along the customer journey — one that invariably takes customers to online platforms.

However, tackling your social media management can feel overwhelming as a business owner. The secrets to social media success can feel elusive, to say the least.

We want to help demystify social media and make it accessible for any business, from franchise social media managers to independent business owners.

So grab yourself a pumpkin spice something, roll up your sleeves and prepare to have a fantastic fall. Just follow our secrets to social media success we’ve outlined in our two-part series, starting with part one below. 

Secret #1: Be Social

Among the secrets to social media success, this one is hiding in plain sight. The word “social” gives you a clue as to what this secret may be.

To be clear: Social media is for socializing. Yet many businesses don’t start with the “social” part before the “selling” part. There are certainly ways to leverage social media to sell your products or services. However, the sales pitch shouldn’t comprise the entirety of your social media strategy.

Instead, focus on building relationships with your followers. Earn their trust and their willingness to devote some of their time to paying attention to your business.

When you have their attention, they’ll be more receptive to your occasional sales messages and promotions. It will also make any investment into social media advertising — which we recommend to all our clients — much more worthwhile.

Read more in our “Social Media Myths, Debunked” article with Myth #5: Social Media Should Be Sales-Focused.

Secret #2: Engage With Your Followers

As you grow your social media following using the strategies above, you’ll start to get engagements on your posts. Comments, messages, questions and reviews may start to roll in at all hours of the day. It’s imperative that you respond to them quickly.

Getting back to your customers in a timely manner furthers the trust you’re building through engaging, social content. It’s no different than a customer standing in your store and having a conversation with you or asking a question. Could you imagine ignoring someone under these circumstances?

Be helpful, be friendly, be courteous, and aim to get back to your followers within 24 hours, max. Even if the engagement requires nothing more than an acknowledgement on your part, your response matters.

“80% of companies online are under the impression that they deliver exceptional social media customer service, while only 8% of their customers say they agree.” — Smart Insights

Secret #3: Use Cross-Channel Marketing

You probably already have other marketing channels in place, such as email marketing. What are some opportunities you can identify to integrate your social media marketing into these other channels?

We’ve written about this topic in-depth in 5 Ways to Integrate Email Marketing With Social Media Marketing. Give the article a read for more ideas of how to maximize your marketing efforts.

Don’t stop with email, however. Look for ways to cross-promote from one medium to the other. Your emails, targeted social media ads, blog posts and website can all be working together for your marketing strategy. This way, you’re not only presenting a clear brand image, but also giving your customers a seamless experience with your brand.

HubSpot writes, “With cross-channel marketing, you’re bringing each of these venues into unison with each other so that they build off of each other and amplify their impact. For example, if a lead reads a blog post you wrote about the pitfalls of an issue that your business solves, the marketing email they later receive might provide a customer testimonial from someone who overcame that same issue using your product. 

“Then, when the lead gets on social media later that evening, they’ll see an advertisement with a catchy headline about how your products or services completely remove the issue they were initially reading about.”

Secret #4: Share Different Types of Content

Having a page with a variety of content makes it more appealing for your followers. What do we mean by “variety”?

• Different types of images that authentically showcase your business, such as photos of owners, employees and customers
• Video content with how-to tips, employees explaining why they love your company, or events at your location
• Occasional shared content from a complementary business, with that business tagged 
• Themed and/or hashtagged content that commemorates holidays, days of the week like #tbt, or national “days” that naturally tie in with your business

Not only will this approach keep your page interesting, but it’ll also help you come up with content ideas. Check out a few other articles from our blog for inspiration:

• 7 Proven Video Content Ideas Guaranteed to Liven Up Your Social Media
• 31 Days of Social Media Content Ideas
• 6 Powerful Content Ideas for Your Small Business

Secret #5: Use Technology to Get Organized

Would you rather have one dashboard for your social media, with one login — or multiple logins for multiple platforms? We’re guessing you’d prefer just the one.

Shameless plug alert: The Rallio Dashboard is one such single-login technology designed to simplify your social media management. 

It’s great for businesses with multiple locations that need to syndicate content or keep tighter controls over their locations’ social media pages. However, it’s also great for small businesses that want one central location to post to their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn pages.

In addition to posting, you get scheduling options, analytics, boosting, and various management tools like image and video libraries and inbox/outbox. You can also unlock other advanced features, including employee advocacy, to get your employees involved with your social media.

Whatever technology you choose, the point is that technology can help you manage, well, other technology. 

Secret #6: Hire Humans to Add Personality

Along with technology, you need humans to help with your social media. Although technology can help automate and organize everything, humans are the real secrets to social media success. 

What can humans do that technology cannot?

• Write your captions with appropriate hashtags
• Engage with your audience
• Offer customer support
• Respond to inquiries and reviews that go beyond your auto-responses
• Infuse your pages with personality
• Boost your content and decide what to boost
• Make sure your content matches your brand voice and messaging

Our Rallio Local division was born out of the need by many businesses to have someone taking care of these everyday tasks. Because social media is always “on,” 24/7, you can’t take a break from it. Having a team like Rallio Local ensures nothing slips through the cracks — and you’re that always growing on social media.

More Secrets to Social Media Success to Come

This was part 1 in a two-part series with the top 12 secrets to social media success. Watch for part 2 coming later this week for the final six secrets.