Every other week, On Small Business reaches out to a panel of young entrepreneurs for answers to some of the most pressing social media questions facing small business owners. The following responses are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of young entrepreneurs.
Joe Cassara, founder and chief executive of You Need My Guy in Rochester, N.Y.:
Create a rhythm of communication. Your customers will get to know the personality behind your brand and stick around for the long haul. It’s important to be consistent with and not disruptive to your brand. No one likes to see a company post the same link every time, but ongoing updates within reason usually means that there is some excitement around what you have going on.
Social media is a tool, just like other means of communication. If you wouldn’t have something real to talk about to a room full of your customers, it’s probably not worth posting on any network. So, go make something happen, and then figure out the best way to spread the news! As a guideline, try to post three to five times per week on Facebook and at least daily on Twitter. Beyond that, figure out where your customers hang out, and make sure you have a presence there.
Slava Rubin, founder and chief executive of Indiegogo in New York, N.Y.:
I spend a lot of time listening and engaging with customers. On average, I post approximately one to three times per day. My posts are usually a mix of my favorite Indiegogo campaigns of the moment, crowdfunding tips and data, as well as content I think is interesting around the Web.
Karen Moon, co-founder and chief executive of StyleMusée in New York, N.Y.:
The number of posts we do per day is tailored by platform, and how our followers are interacting with content on each of the platforms. On Twitter, our posts are about starting a conversation, and it’s more of a natural interaction than a schedule. The lifespan of tweets is short and there’s less of a visual element to the story, so immediacy is important.
On Facebook, quality over quantity increases engagement significantly. We’ve seen this on our own page and analysis of other brand pages. We use Facebook Insights to understand what type of content resonates with our followers. In general, limiting posts to two times per day and four days a week has had the highest engagement.
We take note of Buddy Media’s white paper on social media engagement for retailers:
●Posting once or twice daily produces 40 percent higher engagement.
● Posting one to four times weekly produces 71 percent higher engagement.
●Posts between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m. receive 20 percent higher engagement.
●On Wednesdays, fan engagement is 8 percent above average.
●Posts with 80 characters or less receive 66 percent higher engagement.
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