The best time to share on social media? When you’re present
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People engaging you on social media are looking to get to know you and to learn something about your personality and character.
After decades of advertisements, public relations’ driven messages and canned content pushed at us, it’s the genuine and authentic voice of a person that has made social media so popular.
I was recently part of a discussion with legal marketing professionals wanting to know the best days and times for law firms and lawyers to share items on social media. Studies and reports were cited.
What a mistake says Jim Coll, Chief Communucations Officer at Southern Mississippi University. You need to be yourself.
To be sure, millennials expect that you will interact with them on social media. They do not want to hear from a third party managing your account, or worse, a robot that posts automated messages at clearly defined and calculated intervals. They want to know that their questions will be answered by a real person.
It’s the difference between a person answering your customer service phone line and an answering machine. The former takes more time and care, but the former is also clearly more effective from a public relations standpoint.
The best time for you to share on social media is when you’ll be there to engage those who engage what you share.
Make it easy on yourself. Share when you read something that is interesting, no matter the time. That way you’ll be around to engage someone who may comment, like or re-share.
Make an exception when reading late at night in which case you may want to share through Buffer to a time when you’ll next be online.
Social media is not a numbers game, it’s a relationships game. I’ll take a relationship with an influencer, a client or a prospective client who engages what I share over numbers any day.
The fact that the vast majority of lawyers and law firms do look at social media as a numbers game is an opportunity for you.
From Coll:
If you want to reach people, your voice must be distinctive. It must cut through the clutter and the noise of more than 1.4 billion Facebook accounts, hundreds of millions of tweets each month, snaps, posts, pics and more. And the easiest and best way for your voice to be unique and distinctive is for it to be authentic.
Be yourself on social media. Engaging others in a real and authentic fashion builds relationships and a reputation.