You’ve probably heard this advice before: “Research how your competitors use social media to see what works and what gets attention.” It may sound obvious, and I suspect very few of us do it a thorough way. But this is a valuable resource that can take the place of a lot of trial and error.
For example, in an article published at SearchEngineJournal.com Taylor Pratt suggests you ask yourself questions like this:
- How frequently are they participating?
- What types of messages are they leaving: fun, educational or are they just sending out mini-commercials?
- How many people are interacting with them?
- What is the sentiment of those interactions and which ones received the most comments?
- What time of day and on what days are they participating?
- Are they running any types of targeted promotions?
- Which promos are getting them the most attention?
In other words, before jumping into an expensive social media campaign, do some careful planning. But on top of that, do some research into how other companies similar to yours are using different media. You’ll save a lot of time and resources letting them do your testing for you.
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