It’s about this time of year that people start looking forward to pretty flowers, sprucing up their yards and thinking about what to plant in their gardens. As I am sure you already know, if you want to have a successful garden, there are some essential things you will need. You need soil, seeds, water, sunlight, etc. And if left unattended, your garden will quickly wither and die. Your Social Media is very similar. If you run a well-tended social media campaign, you will reap the rewards. There are five steps that will not only help your garden, but also help your social media thrive this spring.

Start With A Plan

Many businesses make the mistake of creating social media accounts, like Facebook and Instagram, and start posting without any thought or research behind it and wonder why they aren’t seeing instant results. Yes, there may be some lucky (and I mean VERY lucky) companies that start posting without any rhyme or reason and find success, but these companies are the exception, not the rule. Most businesses that do well on social media (even really popular ones) put a lot of thought and effort into it. If you want a garden to grow well, you need to have a plan for where you are going to plant it, how often you will water it, what other types of nutrients it needs, etc. To ensure your time spent on social media is worth it, you also need a plan. You need to determine a content strategy, define your audience and figure out which platforms will work best for your company. You might also consider making a schedule that will help you keep to your plan. This will take a lot of research, time and brainstorming, but it will be well worth it.

Get The Right Tools

When planting a garden you need tools. This could include rakes, shovels, hoes and many others. There are also tools that can help you with your social media. If you haven’t already experienced this yourself, you can imagine how it is hard to stay on top of posting every day (or multiple times a day) on several different social media channels. It can get overwhelming and hard to keep track of. Lucky for you, there are a lot of great tools out there to help you. There are tons of social media scheduling tools that can help you save time and be more efficient. Beyond post-scheduling tools there are tools that can help you gain valuable insights into your audience and performance on your posts. Use these tools and they just might save you from falling short on your social media.

Pull The Weeds

You will frequently need to check on your social media and analyze what is working and what isn’t. There are some campaigns or posts that will perform well and others that will flop. In order to improve and optimize your social channels, you need to continually get rid of the ideas that aren’t working, elaborate on those that are and think of new ideas to try. Doing so will help your engagement and expand the reach of your posts.

Consistency Is Key

To stay relevant to your followers, you need to stay active on social media. Just like you would consistently check on your garden, you need to make sure that you are consistently posting every week. One thing to remember is that quality is greater than quantity. Although it is important to post nearly every day on social media, those posts won’t do you any good if they are not relevant to your audience or aren’t good posts. Determine how many quality posts your company can reasonably make each week and stick to it. If that’s seven, awesome! If it’s four, that’s good, too. Just make sure it is consistent every week.

Keep It Watered

It goes without saying that you have to water your garden if you want it to stay alive. Your social media presence will die if you don’t tend to it frequently as well. You need to consistently check on it and make sure that you are engaging with your audience daily. If they are leaving comments on your posts or sending you messages, it is vital that you reply to them quickly or they will lose interest. It takes some serious commitment, but checking your social daily will really help your company grow.

So maybe comparing your social media to a garden is a little silly, but I think it proves the point. Social media works, but only if you do. Just like a garden doesn’t grow flowers, plants, fruits or vegetables overnight, your social media presence and followers won’t magically grow, either. It takes a lot of time and effort, but if you make a plan, use the right tools, pay constant attention and stay committed, you will be pleased at how it helps your company grow.

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