Welcome to 2019, and the excitement and uncertainty it brings!
While the world waits with baited breath to see how we manage to keep our little island afloat after March 29th, one thing is for certain – whether or not the country prospers, our social media will be on overdrive with opinions, advice, criticism and, hopefully, continued celebration of all that’s great here in the UK.
Over the years I’ve come to dislike new year’s resolutions intensely as I’m dreadful for committing to them, but for those of you who are starting the year with good intentions, here’s a reminder of ten things you can do to boost your marketing. They’re listed in no particular order, so maybe choose your favourite three strategies to focus on for January and see how it goes…
- Create a social media plan that encompasses all the platforms you use, or should be using. Be realistic – there’s no point scheduling time you don’t have as you’ll be setting yourself up to fail, and no one likes that.
. - If time management is an issue, use a good social media dashboard to help you schedule posts more productively. I love Hootsuite, but the usually-helpful team there made some changes last year that I didn’t agree with. I researched other platforms and still found this to be the best for me, and therefore the one I tend to recommend. (I can help with your time management too… just click here.)
. - Think about using paid posts. Since Facebook changed its algorithm to – apparently – enforce its goal of keeping it a ‘friends and family platform,’ it’s been much harder for business pages to feature in anyone’s newsfeed. This doesn’t mean you should stop being there; on the contrary, it’s still a brilliant place to be seen. You just might find that you’re seen a lot more easily if you pay to boost your page, or even a single post.
. - Share images! Photos are hugely popular on all social media channels, so don’t be shy to share. Be discerning though, and remember that what’s fun on Facebook may not be appropriate on LinkedIn.
. - And following on from that… if you’re not yet on Instagram, join the party now! It’s fantastic if you’re a creative person and a whiz with imagery, obviously – but even if you’re not, this is the hottest place for building a following and encouraging people to recognise your brand, products and services.
. - Make sure you consistently link back to your website. Help your SEO by bringing people from social media to your site and directing them to the pages that will earn you money!
. - Reshare posts with a fresh headline. For example, if you’ve posted a blog, share it the first time with the headline you chose, then share again a couple of days later with a completely different headline. You may be surprised to see the varying responses.
. - Whether you’re rewriting headlines or sharing new content, don’t forget to use keywords! If you’ve attended any of my social media training sessions, you’ll know that I bang on about keywords – and for good reason. Don’t underestimate their power, as these are the terms your potential customers are searching for.
. - Don’t be scared to show your personality…. Remember that social media is social, and people buy from people. Be fun, friendly and passionate – and professional of course.
. - And finally… stay safe! It might seem silly to mention this to business-minded people but the hackers and naughty people love to steal passwords, identities, data etc…. you know the story! Update your security information regularly and never share passwords.
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I use social media every day, so I’ve set myself the January challenge of reading Les Mis (in book form, not on Kindle). It’s my favourite show so I’m interested to see how the original text stacks up.
Let’s check back at the end of January and see how well we’ve both done…!
Wishing you a happy, successful, prosperous 2019!!
If one of your business resolutions is to up your game on the social media front, here are three of my favourite tools to help you on your way. They’ll give you a kick-start to achieving your goal in a smooth and easy-to-maintain way. In each case, there’s a free version as well as a paid option that gives you more features.
Time definitely turned back this week when I took a couple of lovely teenage girls to Gatsby’s Drugstore in Borough for an immersive evening of 
Time also stood still at a performance of 
On the other side of the family, crazy cute Stephen appeared via Facebook five years ago. He’s here for a visit now, and we braved the forecast gales on Sunday to admire the cityscape from the Sky Garden. London is phenomenal from the sky, and 35 floors up you get a fabulous view of the eclectic mix of architecture and the sheer scale of the best city in the world. We’re taking time out to visit another of my favourites this week: Paris. No doubt we’ll be tweeting!
I came here for a meeting, then spent a bit of time wandering around until I settled in this nice spot. It’s a wonderful gallery – but then so is the much smaller, teeny little gallery where I’ll be exhibiting my latest poem from Thursday (until the 19th). I’d love to exhibit somewhere like this, of course, but the Mile End Art Pavilion is equally as exciting. And I’m making the cakes on Thursday – which I’m sharing for free if you’re able to pop along.
They’re traditional Jewish honey cakes, in line with the nature of the exhibition – which is called 
