Any business owner knows the importance of reaching new people and maintaining existing relationships. That’s why so many businesses rely on social media to keep audiences up to date with their business news and to drive sales.
But for those who have maintained their social media profiles understand the challenges. Coming up with ideas to post, publishing in the right format to each network, and staying on top of messages and comments can take hours per week – often to what seems like little growth.
Never fear: there’s a better way. If you’re looking to leverage social media to grow your camp, there are a few tactics to keep in mind to make the most of your time and see the best results.
Plan Time to Dedicate towards Social Media Efforts
Social media strategy can often be treated as an afterthought or something fun to work on when you have time. But just like there are periods of the year when you need to set aside time for working on your taxes, renewing business licenses, and recruiting and hiring, social media should be treated just like any of these other non-negotiable facets of your business.
Plan Ahead
Create a dated spreadsheet and drop in all the important dates for your camp over the next few months that you’ll want to post for. This may include registration deadlines, deadlines for early bird discounts, and countdowns to when the camp will next start. Fill in other days with post ideas, such as for holidays, staff appreciation, and camp memories. Include creative posts that invite engagement, such as “share your favorite camp memory” or “tag your friends with an inside joke you made at camp!”.
Utilize Social Media Management Platforms
Finally, use Facebook Creator Studio or a service like Hootsuite to schedule out all of your posts. Now, you’ll have consistently updated profiles and will just need to monitor for comments. Not only will this guarantee that it isn’t forgotten, but you’ll also have higher-quality posts when you focus on building them.
Ignore the Rules
For years, social media gurus have sung the praises of the 30-30-30 rule: of your social media content, 30% should be about you, 30% should be about others, and 30% should be fun and engaging. Some sources will say 20/30/50, or other divisions. At the end of the day, every page and audience are different, and it’s completely okay to ignore the “rules”!
The people following your camp online are likely either people who have been to your camp and enjoyed their time or people who haven’t been to your camp but are considering it. Build your content around what they want to see – even if almost all of it seems self-promoting.
At the end of the day, the content that gets your page in front of the most people is what gets the most reactions, shares, and comments. Focus on content that can drive conversations. Meanwhile, the entire point of you spending time on social media is to drive business. So don’t be afraid to post direct calls-to-action: asking people to leave reviews, share your page with their friends, and sign up for emails!
Check the Analytics
Just like any element of your business, you want to balance the time you spend on it with the ROI of your efforts. Social media can be a lot like a billboard; seen by lots of people but difficult to track exactly how much traffic you get from it. That’s why you want to make sure that what you’re putting into it is worth it.
You’ll find that dedicating time and energy to social media will help extend your reach and drive more conversions on your camp website. When combined with your online camp management software, you’ll be able to drive registrations and keep everything on track.
Use in-app analytics to see which posts are performing the best in addition to what times of the day and what days get your posts in front of the most people. When combined with website and blog analytics, you’ll get a great picture of what’s working and what’s not.
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