Are you considering expanding your brand’s reach and delving into the world of multiple social media accounts?
Well, you’ve come to the right place. This article will serve as your guide to navigating the big bad world of social media.
There are multiple reasons why you might opt for multiple social media accounts. For example, you may want to:
- Build brand awareness
- Reach a larger audience
- Boost sales
- Target different demographics
- Localize content
As you can see, the benefits are innumerable. However, there’s no right or wrong answer as to whether you should use multiple accounts.
If you’re a big company with different products, services, and even countries to cater to, it might be a no-brainer. Getting your name on different platforms is an effective way of reaching your intended audience.
However, if you’re a small business, there’s no guarantee that having multiple accounts will benefit the size of your audience base.
With all that considered – there’s no doubt that managing multiple accounts can have its benefits.
The pros of having multiple social media accounts
As mentioned above, the most prominent positive associated with multiple social media accounts is your ability to zero in on different audiences.
For example, you may use LinkedIn for company recruitment, Instagram for your e-commerce marketing, and Facebook for building brand awareness and local communities.
By allowing for customer segmentation, you redefine your ability to deliver individualized content – an all-important criterion in clinching audience engagement.
This is also important when considering the location of your audience. If you’re serving international markets, or even different states, having different social media accounts means you can localize your content.
Finally, the breadth of product variety may affect how many social media accounts you use. If you offer a wide range of services or items, then using different accounts to market your high-tech products and clothing line is undoubtedly useful.
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In turn, this helps reduce confusion for the buyer and streamlines their buying cycle.
What’s not to love?
The cons of having multiple social media accounts
We’ve just sung the praises of how having multiple social media accounts can amplify and tailor your content.
But you should also be aware that there are potential drawbacks to operating on multiple platforms.
First, you need to be clear on the purpose and value of each individual account. Without this clarity, it may cause audience confusion. For example, they may be unsure about where to turn if they want to report a faulty item or purchase your products.
Consistency is also required when it comes to your publishing schedule; otherwise, irregularity can make your brand seem unreliable to an expectant audience.
In a similar fashion, if various accounts are run by different teams, this can lead to mismatched results when it comes to tone of voice and visuals.
Finally, if you’re spread too thinly across different social media accounts, you run the risk of skimping on audience engagement. Engagement is the holy grail of a successful social media strategy, as you’ll see later on.
Naturally, there are benefits and downsides to any social media strategy you choose. But if you want to spread your wings and take the multiple accounts route, then using our 5 tips will ensure you flourish virtually.
Five tips for managing multiple social media accounts
It’s not always easy juggling multiple accounts across different platforms. If you follow our tips below, however, you’ll have a much better chance at improving brand visibility and audience engagement across the board.
Lead with your business strategy
The most important thing you can do is to consider how social media plays into your business strategy, both short- and long-term. This is the first step in securing your successful social media project management.
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You’ll need to consider your position on the following questions:
- What is the main objective of your social media strategy?
- How do the main objectives relate to your overarching business strategy?
- Who is your target audience and their demographic?
- What platform do they use?
- What pain points can your company address?
- What topics will you tackle, and in what style?
Figuring out where you stand on the above questions will allow you to finetune your social media approach whilst, at the same time, making sure that it always relates to your overarching business goals.
It will also help you decide which platforms to have your multiple accounts on – if that is indeed relevant for you.
However, you should also be aware of any social media pitfalls that may lie ahead. Consider the following challenges that many encounter on social media:
- Engagement/reach
- Trends/algorithms
- Content creation
- Strategy
- Authenticity/relevance
- Measuring ROI
- Managing social media
Being aware of your own specific paint points will help keep you ahead of the game.
Have a content creation plan
There’s no doubt about it – planning and writing social media content is intensive due to its emphasis on research. In order to understand a brand, especially one that’s not your own, it takes time to dig deep and understand how they move, feel, and act.
This means you need to set time aside for planning and content creation. But what type of content should you include?
It’s generally understood that social media content is most effective when it combines both new content and ‘curated’ content.
Creating original content is the most labor-intensive to provide. However, you can make the process enjoyable by brainstorming with other social media heads, marketing partners, or clients to generate something authentic. Getting into the habit of producing new ideas whilst doing competitor research is useful for keeping ahead of the curve.
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As for curated content, this includes anything from your old posts to user-generated content or repurposing a thought leader’s post. Please note that their permission needs to be obtained – and you should also offer your own unique spin on the topic. This allows you to stay relevant whilst offering fresh and meaningful content for your audience.
User-generated content is also a godsend. Not only does it reaffirm engagement levels, but it saves you from doing any hard work. Deepen the connection between your business and its audience by involving your customer base in challenges, promotions, reviews, and shout-outs. As an added bonus, UGC lends an air of credibility and reliability to your brand. Win-win!
In general, between 70-80% of your content should be original. For the remaining 20-30% that is dedicated to curated content, this is best used to fill in gaps in your posting calendar.
When it comes to generating curated content, you’ll want to be able to contact large groups of people at the same time for optimum outreach. If the question, “What is fax broadcasting?” has ever passed your lips, then it’s a handy method of doing just that, allowing you to collaborate with influencers and industry leaders alike.
Finally, in order to ensure consistency and the right tone of voice, you’ll need a social media style guide. Give clear advice on the tone of voice, language, hashtags, images, video guidelines, and target audience to ensure a smooth, seamless experience.
This ensures a cohesive brand experience even if accounts are run by different teams or departments.
If these teams are remote, it’s even more important to implement clear expectations. Having the right technology is important, too. For example, opting for a remote desktop application for mac will make sure everyone is up-to-speed and able to perform efficiently.
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Social media calendar
A social media calendar is your knight in shining armor, and it will help you apply your content creation perfectly.
Specifically, it will help you figure out your posting schedule, allowing you to create a timetable for posting content. You may opt for the traditional spreadsheet or use any of the social media tools out there, such as Planable.
An editorial calendar will also help provide you with direction, ensuring that you’re aligned with your social media strategy and, crucially, your business strategy. Moreover, it allows you to identify gaps or missed opportunities in your schedule so that you never miss a beat.
You should also bear in mind that manually posting each time is a disruptive and time-consuming process. Take advantage of automatization tools to create and post batches of content.
Find the right posting times
Each platform has its optimum time and frequency for posting. You’ll have to do a bit of homework to figure out what works out best for you and your content.
Don’t be shy here – it might take some trial and error to figure out the golden numbers. And bear in mind that these things have a habit of changing. Though consumers prefer dependability, they can also be fickle, meaning you may have to switch things up a bit.
Analytics tools will be a godsend here, saving you a lot of time and effort.
Focus on engagement
Alright, so you’ve figured out how social media plays into your business strategy. From this, you’ve created an impeccable content plan, aligned it with your social media calendar, and found the optimum time to post.
Incredible! But now is not the time to drop the ball. Unfortunately, you’ve still got some work to do.
Namely, you need to focus – heavily – on engagement. This part is so important that you should carve out time during your working week to give it special attention.
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If you want to build an online following, you need to be diligent in responding to comments, mentions, tags, and DMs. In essence, you need to show your audience that you care about their comments, feedback, and experiences.
Complaints are a notable area where companies tend to fall behind. And we get it – it’s no fun hearing about everything you did badly when you’ve tried so hard. However, complaints actually offer a golden opportunity.
First, they provide invaluable feedback. Companies pay extortionate amounts of money to figure out how to make products better according to customer pain points. When your audience is writing in to tell you this – for free – then you should absolutely take advantage of it.
Besides this, many complaints are genuine. Engaging properly and empathetically is a brilliant way of showing consumers that you care about more than just the contents of their wallets.
Finally, engagement is also something you measure. You’ll need to keep track of key metrics, such as engagement, reach, impressions, likes, follows, and content interactions. This will help you filter out content, or event accounts, that are lagging and unsuccessful.
One particular tip we can give you is to track keywords; this gives you an extensive overview of how your audience is talking about you and, again, is a goldmine of information. Tracking mentions is also useful as it allows you to respond quickly.
In a similar vein, operational risk management tools use strategy and data to figure out the most effective and safe risks to take in your business. Using a comparable approach when juggling multiple social media accounts is the smartest thing you can do.
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The exciting world of social media
It may seem as if setting up multiple social media accounts is a godsend, allowing you to interact with customers on never-ending virtual platforms.
Yet heed our warning. It’s important to use these accounts for the right reasons. Namely, if you have an actual need to do so. Under no circumstances should you engage in multiple accounts simply because your competitors are doing so.
It might make them seem omnipresent, but you have no guarantee that they are providing stellar engagement. Instead, focus entirely on your needs – and resources as a company as well as your customers’ pain points. Allow that to guide your decision.
And after that? Go fly your wings, on whatever platform you choose!