Know Your Audience
When it comes to social media interactions, there are three types of small businesses: the one who posts a bunch of engagement posts and neglect to post about their services or products, the one who posts a bunch of product pictures and forgets to engage their followers, and the one that strikes a balance between the two.
There isn't necessarily a specific ratio for engagement and product posts that hits the mark for every business. Different businesses have different consumer bases and those different consumer bases behave differently on social media. Some people live vicariously through social media, so they want to see the really cool products for a little vicarious retail therapy. They'll interact with product pictures and the social media platform spreads that post around. Other people want a brand that they can relate to. Of course, they want the product or service, but they also want to see that personal touch from your brand so they feel like part of a community.
So, you need to try to reach both if you can. But more importantly, you need to analyze your social media insights and see which kind of consumer base you are already appealing to. When you post product pictures, do you get a lot of engagement or does it immediately fall into the proverbial trash can? When you post a funny meme or comic, do your followers react? Or do they cringe a little bit and move on? Knowing your current followers and what they will engage with will massively improve your visibility on the social media platforms you use to promote your business.
As a general rule, I like to do around 80% engagement/announcement posts and 20% product posts. However, for different clients, I use different rules. Some even do best with primarily product posts, so I completely flip the general rule. I always base which kind of post I place next on the analytics of previous posts and keep in mind differences in topic (is it holiday-related?), differences in media (videos do better than pictures which do better than plain text), and differences in hype (is a long awaited product about to hit shelves and that caused the previous product post to do really well whereas normal product posts don't typically do as well?). You have to learn how to spot outliers and understand why they are outside the typical engagement you get. Can you replicate that? Or is it based on external forces outside your control? If A, then replicate it, but don't burn your followers out on it. If B, then partially ignore that post when considering future content.
Understanding your audience and how your various posts are performing can be the difference between growing and stagnating as a social media driven business. And whether you think so or not, your business is at least partially social media driven. So, keep your eye on the analytics, schedule posts that your followers will engage, and stay consistent with your posting schedule. Over time, your page will grow, and that greater visibility will statistically lead to greater revenue.
There isn't necessarily a specific ratio for engagement and product posts that hits the mark for every business. Different businesses have different consumer bases and those different consumer bases behave differently on social media. Some people live vicariously through social media, so they want to see the really cool products for a little vicarious retail therapy. They'll interact with product pictures and the social media platform spreads that post around. Other people want a brand that they can relate to. Of course, they want the product or service, but they also want to see that personal touch from your brand so they feel like part of a community.
So, you need to try to reach both if you can. But more importantly, you need to analyze your social media insights and see which kind of consumer base you are already appealing to. When you post product pictures, do you get a lot of engagement or does it immediately fall into the proverbial trash can? When you post a funny meme or comic, do your followers react? Or do they cringe a little bit and move on? Knowing your current followers and what they will engage with will massively improve your visibility on the social media platforms you use to promote your business.
As a general rule, I like to do around 80% engagement/announcement posts and 20% product posts. However, for different clients, I use different rules. Some even do best with primarily product posts, so I completely flip the general rule. I always base which kind of post I place next on the analytics of previous posts and keep in mind differences in topic (is it holiday-related?), differences in media (videos do better than pictures which do better than plain text), and differences in hype (is a long awaited product about to hit shelves and that caused the previous product post to do really well whereas normal product posts don't typically do as well?). You have to learn how to spot outliers and understand why they are outside the typical engagement you get. Can you replicate that? Or is it based on external forces outside your control? If A, then replicate it, but don't burn your followers out on it. If B, then partially ignore that post when considering future content.
Understanding your audience and how your various posts are performing can be the difference between growing and stagnating as a social media driven business. And whether you think so or not, your business is at least partially social media driven. So, keep your eye on the analytics, schedule posts that your followers will engage, and stay consistent with your posting schedule. Over time, your page will grow, and that greater visibility will statistically lead to greater revenue.