Your social media schedule: it’s about more than sending out posts at the right time

Do you know where to find your target audience on the social web? If you are into social media marketing, I’m sure you have seen this question many times on presentations, videos, infographics, blog posts, articles, and books related to social media.

Social media is still very new to many and somewhat of a game. You publish a new update or blog post and then visit a specific social media channel in the hopes of connecting with some of the best people that are online at the moment. This is good, but in reality how do some people use social media?

• Some people schedule updates (tweets) throughout the day
• Some people only post updates and don’t engage at all
• Some people only consume content (social technographics)
• Some people only publish the latest news
• Some people are engaging every time they are online

Reaching your target audience
If you are worried about reaching your target audience at the right time they are online, here’s my advice: it’s really okay if your target audience isn’t online when you publish your updates. Set certain times of the day aside to login and show that you are a real person representing a company and that you know what is going on online, especially if your company name or yourself is mentioned by someone else.

Use social media to communicate and promote your story. Curate content and link to other relevant content on your blog. Make a point of highlighting your clients who you know are active on specific social media channels. Also, use tools such as Google Analytics and Hootsuite to help you measure what content and updates are shared and which content draws people into your blog or website.

Monitoring the web

Monitor your progress with social media periodically. Trust me, doing it this way will save you a lot of frustration. Search on your favourite social media channel and reply to something that was said a while ago. I do this quite often. You can also use specific hashtags in your updates if you want to drive your message to a specific group of people that might be interested in your message and content.

The true power of social media lies in it’s real time nature and it’s not always about posting at the times set aside in your social media calendar or schedule. Treat social media the same as any other channel and engage and monitor on your own time to ensure you are not wasting your time.

Always have your eyes open and your ears to the ground. Listen to the news and your surroundings on a daily basis. How can you use that information in your strategy? Heard a breaking news story that your target audience will find interesting? Breaking news spreads like wildfire on the social web. Be the first to share this with your target audience and build authority around your name.

Take advantage of using real time news and information with your campaign. Social media thrives on fresh and new information that can be shared. You can’t plan real time news in your calendar.

Image: Martin Terber via Flickr.