Posting Schedules for Westercon67

Posting on social media is easy, but successfully engaging your audience through posts on social media is a whole lot harder. Through some research, I found some interesting advise from Social Media experts that might help Westercon67 start to develop good media habits. These experts all have their own ideas about the best way to maximize customer engagement and some of them even disagree, but these are all great ideas to keep in mind while we are preparing a media posting schedule for Westercon67.

 “As a guideline try to post three to five times per week on Facebook” -Joe Cassara, founder and chief executive of You Need My Guy.

“I post approximately 1-3 times per day”- Slava Rubin, founder and chief executive of Indiegogo.

“On Facebook, quality over quantity increases engagement significantly. We’ve seen this on our own page and analysis of 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.”-Karen Moon, co-founder and chief executive of StyleMusee.

In Buddy Media’s white paper, we found the following advice that could help FFBL with their posting on social media.

-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.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-small-business/post/optimal-outreach-for-small-businesses-how-many-social-media-posts-per-day/2012/06/01/gJQAPQnR7U_blog.html

An example of a company that has been very successful with social media posting is a local company call Bodyguardz. I know the owners of this company and so I follow them pretty closely on social media outlets. 

Bodyguardz does a really great job at balancing their social media posts, especially on Facebook where I follow them most closely. On their FB page in the last week they have posted a thanks to their customers, a current event post that would select a winner from the comments, a product introduction, a tribute to MLK, a shout out to an employee etc. This type of diversity in posting really allows the audience to get involved and to not get bored with content. Bodyguardz is a smaller company that is still growing, but they get lots of participation when they ask questions and post current events. They are making great use of their Facebook page with all of this diverse content.

Through this diverse content they are showing appreciation for their customer segments and also building customer relationships by offering free product on occasion. They are showing their value proposition by sharing material/videos/articles that shows off their products. They are showing their audience their channel by posting content that is linked to their other sites—website, twitter site, youtube site etc. They are using a lot of the Business Model Canvas ideas in their posting which has proven to be extremely beneficial for them.

Ideas for Westercon67:

Westercon67’s posting on social media is pretty sparse. Audiences need dependability in order to engage and really commit to brands/events. My three suggestions for Westercon67  are to 1) Post content more regularly on social media sites 2) Post diverse engaging content that will resonate with audience 3) Use the social media sites’ differences to your advantage.

Post content more regularly on social media sites:

If Westercon67 really wants to get new fresh blood to their convention, they really need to reach them through social media. Social media is where this young demographic of new writers/creators spend most of their time. By posting content regularly on social media sites they will be able to start building relationships with and earning the trust of this younger demographic. Through these posts they would be able to reach all of their customer segments and begin to build customer relationships.

From the advice I found above, I agree most with Karen Moon’s statement that “quality over quantity increases engagement significantly”. If I were in charge of the Westercon67 social media platforms my goal would be to post 3-5 times per week. With posts Monday, Wednesday, Friday (and a day or two more when needed), their customer segments would begin to understand and relate to the brand, hopefully through the content, and then begin to engage with them. I would also give them the advice from Buddy Media’s white paper, to post between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m. This might seem backwards at first, but after doing research with a previous client we found this to be true. When do millennials check social media? Right when they wake up and right when they go to bed. This might be a beneficial piece of information for Westercon67 to utilize.

Post diverse engaging content that will resonate with audience:

Westercon67 should take some ideas from the Bodyguardz Facebook page for what types of content to deliver to their audience.  Obviously Bodyguardz has a different purpose/audience than Westercon67, but getting ideas of content would really help. Here is a mock social media posting schedule for Westercon67

·      Every Monday post about the upcoming event—new people who are coming, information that might help them sign up, cost, ideas that will be shared, information about key speakers etc. This will allow people to start understanding what Westercon67 is, which will be very crucial if they want to be successful. Help the audience see the Who, What, Where, Why, When, & How of Westercon67. Through this step alone they will be able to build customer relationships, show key resources (guest speakers that could draw a crowd), give them a cost structure, the actual price of the event, and give the the value proposition, why this event will be so valuable to future writers.  

·      Every Wednesday post something in the writing/creating world that would peak your audience’s interest. Bring in current events, highlight favorite authors, give facts about the benefits of reading/writing, spotlight new up & coming fantasy books, or make ‘top 10 fantasy books for your summer reading lists’. This will again help build customer relationships, because their audience will begin to see them as a source of quality information.

·      Every Friday post a challenge, contest, question that will get the audience interacting on social media. This step right here will increase connectivity and transitivity. Post a writing challenge, a poetry contest, a trivia quiz, a short story competition, etc. that will get your audience doing and engaging. Creating original contents and asking for original content will be beneficial for Westercon67 because that is what they are all about, becoming the next hot fantasy writers. Make sure with this step that the audience is compelled enough to want to participate. Give them free tickets to the convention, getting a poem published in a local journal, a free book signed by one of the authors attending or something of that nature that will make them really excited about participating and coming to the event.

Use the social media sites’ differences to your advantage.

The last and final advice I would give to Westercon67 is to realize the power and benefits of different social media sites. While many social media sites have similar capabilities, there are also sites that exceed others success at some functions. Learn the best places to target THE WESTERCON67 audience and do it there. If the westercon67 audience is on multiple platforms, then leverage all of those. Use Facebook for the things we mentioned above, news, contests, information, pictures of past events. Also use Twitter for purposes that are best on that platform. Incorporate hashtags, follow people how are promoting similar events, retweet other’s statuses that would appeal to your audience, reach out to fellow authors and invite them to tweet about your event. These actions are received very well on Twitter, and so should be utilized on that platform. Posts on Twitter are supposed to be kept short, make sure you do this because short posts on twitter will increase engagement and participation.

Westercon67 has a huge audience out there, they just need to find them and use the right platforms to reach them. If they can recognize their own Business Model and use that in communication with their audience they will be much more powerful and successful.