Okay. Let me start by saying that no-one sets out to create a social media strategy that sucks.
Or at least I don’t think they do. I didn’t think I was…
But then, I met a friend of mine for a few beers in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago.
We got talking about work – we’re old work colleagues so it was bound to happen.
Then the conversation turned to social media and in particular Twitter.
And it went something along these lines.
My friend: So are you still sending all those spam Tweets still? You send so many Tweets all I see is you in my feed.
Me: Yeah, I’m still active on Twitter if that’s what you mean?
My friend: Aye, but they’re all just links. Are people interested in all that stuff?
Me: Sure, it’s something that bloggers do but I get your point.
My friend: What happened to it being social media?
Me: Hmmm, you got a point. I’ll take a look and have another think.
WHAT HAPPENED TO ENGAGEMENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA?
It was a light-hearted conversation over a beer but he does have a point.
I remember writing about how it’s time to put the social back in social media such a long time ago now.
Yet, all too soon the path of automation takes over and social takes a back seat.
The trouble with making statements like I did in that post is that they mean nothing if you don’t take your own advice.
I’ve been gradually moving away from sharing lots of links since I dumped mass blog commenting as a strategy some time ago.
But there are still a couple of culprits that I need to get a handle on.
HOW MUCH SHARING IS TOO MUCH?
I forgot to ask my friend his take on this.
I was sending between 20 and 30 automated Tweets a day. Not excessive but not minimal either.
If you read what Buffer have to say on their blog then Tweeting three times a day brings the most engagement.
Although they go on to say anything up to 30 Tweets can still bring positive effects on engagement too.
So I decided I’d change a few things to improve engagement and find the sweet spot.
WHERE I’M CHANGING THINGS
TRIBERR
I have a love hate relationship with Triberr.
What I love about it is the potential reach you can achieve. What I hate about it is that I have to wade through so many posts to find ones I want to read.
It’s my own fault for joining so many tribes but that’s the way to gain reach.
For a long time I used to share posts directly through Triberr and it would then spew out Tweets every hour.
The trouble is that’s already far too many in a day if I’m going to improve engagement.
So I’ve binned sharing through Triberr altogether.
KLOUT
Does anyone care about Klout any more? That’s supposing they did in the first place…
I was using it to find relevant posts to read and share.
But the more I use it, the suggestions seem to be less and less relevant.
My score seems to increase if I share links like crazy and dips when I don’t.
And it has become irrelevant to me too. That’s another one to ditch, possibly.
FEEDLY & OTHER SUBSCRIPTIONS
I went through my Feedly account the other day and re-evaluated what was in there.
I deleted loads of feeds I had subscribed too. I did the same with email subscriptions I’d signed up to as well.
It’s amazing how quickly your email inbox can get clogged up with autoresponder emails.
That’ll mean I’m going to have a more manageable reading resource.
And consequently, I hope I can get a better handle on relevant things I might like to share on social media.
BUFFER
Buffer is now where most of my automated sharing comes from.
It makes sense to consolidate everything I want to share in one place so I can keep an eye on things much more easily.
I use Followerwonk to analyse my followers to see when they’re most active and then let Buffer get to work.
I’m now using this social media strategy on Buffer:
9 shares per day on Twitter;
2 shares per day on Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
Anything I read from Triberr, Feedly and other online sources will now get sent to my Buffer.
COSCHEDULE
I use CoSchedule to control how I share my own posts. It’s a must-have plugin for my social media strategy.
Why? Because it makes my life easier.
I can see my most popular posts and the ones which haven’t been shared recently.
I can then schedule posts to be shared from my archives and drag and drop them in place.
That way I know which posts are going to be shared, how many and when.
My plan is to use the following social media strategy on CoSchedule:
3 shares per day on Twitter;
2 shares per day on Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.
MESHFIRE
I’ve been concentrating on Twitter now for some time when it comes to my social media strategy.
And for a social engagement tool, you really can’t beat Meshfire.
It can help you find the right people to engage with and keep on top of conversations.
You can also monitor keywords and also see what’s trending in your Twitter stream.
If you haven’t tried Meshfire out before, you can now sign up for FREE and try it out.
With the free account you get all of what Meshfire has to offer.
The only restrictions are that you can only manage one account and there’s no keyword tracking.
SO WHAT ABOUT YOU?
Do you send a lot of automated Tweets out every day?
Is there an ideal number that works for you? Are you overdoing it on the automated social media sharing front?
Let me know what you think in the comment section below.
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