Optimize Your Company’s Social Media with a Social Release Campaign

By Meg Kramig, Copywriter and Advertising Associate

Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube…there are so many free resources for your business to take advantage of.

Although you may view joining “the conversation” negatively, growing your business into the next social media maverick is a great way to enhance customer communication, creating customer retention and reaching into new potential audiences.

So, you have around 140 characters (for Twitter). What about when you have news beyond that? How do you share?

This is where the social release comes into play. Except instead of traditional press release, think white papers, tip sheets, videos, photos and infographics. Sharing these stories will help customers connect with you online.

Here are steps to creating a successful social release campaign.

1.) Your Story. Your Words.
So you are tired of writing and waiting around for your press releases to get picked up by the media? Why wait? Post it yourself and spread the word through social media. Just remember that you want to keep it conversational instead of in traditional press release style. Use quotes and descriptive, non-industry speech to get your message across. In other words, write it like you are writing to a friend, not a company. Also, don’t post the whole thing. Instead, post small facts and then link them to the whole article on your company’s blog or website.

2.) Think Small.
In the realm of social media, it’s all more important than you think. Upcoming fundraisers, a new drink your coffee shop came up with, tips for tax time. It’s all a part of increasing your conversation. It also increases your chances of getting seen and shared.

5.) It’s All About the Headline.
Though everything is becoming more social, SEO still has its place in the world. Use relevant keywords in your social releases describing your story content. Also remember: if you don’t describe your story in the headline, people might miss it.

6.) The Pitch.
Keep Twitter pitches under 120 characters so that you can ensure that others can “retweet” without cutting off your pitch. Facebook and Google+ can be slightly longer (they are the most “conversational” in the social media realm) but still be sure to keep even those posts under 200 characters.

7.) Master of Multimedia.
But you’ve got articles in newspapers, press releases, etc.! Trust us, if that’s your only strategy, you’ve already lost them. With so much multimedia out there, it is getting harder and harder to hold your audiences’ attention with simply the written word. Instead, try adding pictures, videos and even infographics into the mix. (If you don’t know what an infographic is, click here for some examples.) This will also increase “sharing.”

8.) Keep it Short.
Pull out short, relevant bits of information. The shorter the better. A common practice on social media is skimming, so if it isn’t short, your audience may skip over your content all together. Short facts also make it more probable that your information will get shared.

9.) Engage.
Use stories that your audience cares about. It may sound like a no-brainer, but there is a lot of content out there that customers just don’t find interesting. The best tip? Start thinking like them. If you didn’t work for your business, would you find it interesting? You can even ask them what they’d like to hear about. Set up a Facebook poll to get answers (located on the left side of your home page).

10.) Pull in News.
Set you page to automatically pull in information from established presences your company has such as a blog, your Twitter account or a press release page. You can even pull in feeds automatically with Facebook applications such as involver. The more you cross-platform, the more viewable you are to the public.

11.) Use Social Media Management.
If you want more control over your social media, try a social media management website. These websites allow you to control, track and analyze all of your social media accounts from one easy-to-use website. Websites like Hootsuite even allow you to schedule for future use.

Questions?
Ask the Social Media Mavericks at Graves Advertising Plus.
Call (714) 879-1993.