This document provides tips and advice for using social media effectively for business purposes. It emphasizes the importance of defining marketing goals and strategies, understanding your target audience, and establishing brand pillars or guidelines for content. Specific tips include using visuals, responding to comments, scheduling posts, creating events, and optimizing profiles. The document also cautions against oversharing or posting without purpose. Overall it stresses the need for a comprehensive marketing plan beyond just social media.

1. Digital, Content Strategies and more!
Liberty County Chamber/CVB

2.  Housekeeping
 Bathrooms are in this room & upstairs
 Turn your phone on silent or vibrate please
 Take calls outside
Things to Know
 If you have thin skin this might not be the class for you. Our workshops are honest &
meant to help you. So that may mean that you face some constructive criticism meant to
help you grow.
 I am always happy to chat in person, via email or text with you about your marketing, as
long you’re a Chamber member. We can do free one-on-one appointments. These are also
BRUTALLY honest. So if you’re not looking for someone to literally tell you what you’re
doing wrong (in my opinion) then it’s best to skip one-on-one help. We would of course
never belittle you, but sometimes people can’t take blunt honesty so be real with yourself
before booking!

3.  Facebook/Live
 Instagram/Stories
 Twitter

4.  HECK NO.

5. It’s no secret that one of the biggest consumer trends is the rise of e-
commerce. More than three quarter of Americans go online daily, while 96% of
Americans shop online. (Pew Research Center)
Have you defined your target audience? If not that is absolutely step #1.
What age are they? Gender? Is ethnicity a factor? How much money do they
make? Are they married? Single? Have kids? Where are they located?
Who is your current customer?
Who is your potential customer?
Who would find your content useful or interesting?

6. If you don’t have a defined goal & strategy for your marketing
that is step #2 and #3.
Goal: What do you want your marketing to get for you? More
paying customers? More butts in seats? More people in the door?
More website views? Write down your goal.
Strategy: What is your strategy for marketing? Is Facebook your
only platform/effort? How often do you post? Do you have an
email list? Is your strategy to reach your goal? If not START
OVER.
Is your strategy 1. effective 2. defined 3. attainable
If not it’s time to redefine that strategy & stick to it!

7.  What is our strategy in using social media and why do we have
one? And what should yours be?
 We want to create a relationship with people that will allow them
to see us as the resource for accurate and timely information about
our community.
 We want to push as many people as possible to our website because
then we can begin converting them into paying customers (i.e.
Chamber members or visitors).

8. It sounds silly. But pillars are important. Whether you’ve been
in business/marketing for years or days, you need to know
what makes your customers tick, what your brand is and stick
with that.

9. For us our pillars are the foundation of our marketing. If what we post, design or write
about doesn’t fit in these pillars it does not get used.
People
Nature/Outdoors
Events
History
African American Heritage
Shopping
So what could your pillars be? How do you define them? And how do you stay
within their framework?

10. For example:
-Coffee mug pic on the front porch
w/caption, “Who likes afternoon
coffee?”
-National Sloth Day
-Divorce & a Real Estate
Company

11.  What is the difference between the two?
 Current statistics suggest that a majority of the people searching
the web on their phones are looking for something local. According
to a study 50% of people go to the store or business they searched
for within a day of that search. Additionally, 60% of people have
made use of the information they found on local online ads and on
a business's website.
 Realize that social media is about conversions & conversations.
You’re working to build a relationship.

12.  Facebook (and now Instagram) is ALWAYS changing!
 It’s ok to be frustrated
 It’s ok to have bad posts
 It’s impossible to keep up with….that’s why you have us! And we
struggle too!
 And consequently Twitter and other platforms are changing
regularly as well just to try and keep up!

13.  REMEMBER the 80/20 content rule!
 Tell me a story, don’t sell me a product. What is that
doomaflatchy and how do you use it? SHOW ME
 This strategy revolves around giving a prospective customer
information about your product or service, as well as
information in general. Everyone is trying to sell, but those
that can inform are more likely to get sales. People will
attribute a certain level of expertise to a company, and this
instills confidence in the consumer.
 What pages do you like? Adopt that strategy.

14.  Don’t
 Post pics of yourself every day
 Post pics of you working every day
 Show us everything on your story
 Take and post crappy pictures
 Not have a “look” on IG, everything should have the same feel
 Forget you can pay to boost
 Not be consistent

15.  Do
 Post consistently, that doesn’t mean several times a day
 Include a link in your bio to your website (trackable link-
bit.ly)
 Tag the location of your photo
 Realize IG is a platform that wants artistic shots
 They prefer no filters
 The most popular filter if you use one is Mayfair
 Learn how to tag
 Learn how to do your “story” & Live
 Realize people like motivational quotes
 People like: animals, flowers, nature, sun, water, sky,
children
 Use # (that’s not the pound sign!)
 Follow users in your niche & comment on their posts

16.  Facebook is prioritizing posts from friends and family
and deprioritizing posts from brands/pages. Stay tuned
for more info on what this will mean, but suffice it to
say your reach and engagement on Facebook took a
major hit.
 Page posts that generate conversations will show
higher in News Feed. For example, live videos often
lead to discussion among viewers on Facebook. Using
“engagement-bait” to goad people into commenting on
posts is not a meaningful interaction and will be
demoted in the News Feed.
 Events will play a key role in increasing engagement
and reach because they will show in the newsfeed when
a friend shows interest or attendance. Prioritize
creating and optimizing your events, if you don't
already.

17.  Use your audience and post insights to optimize your content
and posting schedule
 Use rich, high resolution images and video
 Respond to commenters
 Tag other Pages when relevant

18.  Facebook says users will see more content from friends
and family, and less from brands and publishers. This
favors content that draws a lot of comments over posts
that are popular but don’t elicit comments.
 From a Facebook programmer: “Value meaningful social
interactions between people. We want newsfeed to be a
place where people have conversations, where they
connect with people. So we're going to focus more on
that, and less on how much time people spend on
Facebook and on newsfeed, and less on even how much
they share directly.”

19.  Don’t
 Post too frequently (but what does that mean?)
 Ignore comments & questions
 Write a novel as your post. That’s boring, this isn’t the newspaper
or a magazine. Be brief, have picture(s). And size things correctly.
 Continue to share every event you run across on Facebook on your
page.
 Have an About section that is not filled out correctly & accurately
 Like your own posts as yourself

20.  Do
 Learn how to create an event
 Promote posts (meaning spend money)
 If you create an event, invite people
 Change COVER photos more than once every two years.
 Be visual
 Be diverse
 Learn how to schedule
 Invite people to like your page & have your co-workers/staff do the same
 Learn how to “invite” those who like your posts to follow your page
 Make sure you’re liking other posts as your business page
 Learn how to tag a photo and a post, posts without tags are like
swimmers without life vests!
 Learn how to add events to your page without sharing 900 things
 Get rid of or claim Facebook pages that exist for you
 Treat every post like it’s your first one

21. Hinesville Fire
Dept.
-double posts?
-explain (every single
time)
-tag & give context
-# help
-sharing vs making posts
your own; see the
difference
-events added
Martin
Mercantile/The
Robin’s Nest
-learn to tag
-RN=get a fan page
LC Sheriff’s
Dept
-why get rid of the old
page?
-why a page for Sheriff &
one for K9
-give credit/learn to tag
-why visit the citizens?
-the golf course photo….
-no events added
The Shanken
Team
-so many posts
-so many #s
-23 hour ago: 1. flyer for
new listing 2. share link
to website for new listing
3. share link to website
for new listing
-b in Banker
-no events added
Save Our Next
Generation
Live Oak
Chiropractic
-call to action
-post reviews/creatively
Sammy’s
Pressure
Washing
-we talked about changing
the cover photo
-that hamburger post 😡

22.  Stop sharing EVERYTHING, make posts your own
 In doing this use original links and/or trackable links, don’t
give your traffic away!
 Don’t have platforms that you don’t use/post on. Just get rid of
them
 Don’t think you can ever take one class and be done learning
about social media. It changes all the time!

23.  Get/use a character counter: Click here
 Helps to be sure you’re using the right number of letters & words
 Get/use a free subscription to Grammarly
 Helps to be sure you’re cutting unnecessary words
 Helps you respond with empathy
 Helps drive engagement if writing isn’t your thing
 Helps with grammar, punctuation and spelling
Get/use a free subscription to something like Canva
Get/use a product photography course if you’re in retail & learn how to take good
photos easy!
Get/use an editorial calendar. This will help with all of your marketing.

24. You need a marketing plan, even if you don’t want to write it,
that includes more than just social media.