We’re continuing our series of blog posts on social media and frozen yogurt shops. In our last post, we recommended that frozen yogurt shops have accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Opening the accounts is the easy part; the next challenge is to gain a following and keep your audience engaged. This usually takes time and effort, so be persistent and follow our tips for social media engagement.
Building awareness and an audience
Just as your store should get involved with its local community, it should also get involved with the local community that’s using social media. Follow (on Twitter and Instagram) and like (on Facebook) the businesses, organizations and customers that you know and like in your local community. Invite your Facebook friends to like your business page. If someone follows you, follow them back. Keep in mind that there are many inactive accounts out there; if you want to build an engaged following, follow the ones that are active.
Use your shop to promote your social media accounts. Put your social media accounts on your frozen yogurt cups, napkins, digital screens, etc. Make it easy to find your account by including your handle/username (ideally you’d use the same handle across social media platforms). Include your social media accounts on your website.
Provide incentives for liking your Facebook page, sharing a post, retweeting, reposting on Instagram, tagging your shop, tagging others, etc. For example, your shop could run contests on Facebook that require sharing a post or on Instagram that require tagging others. Or your shop could have specials just for FB fans, Twitter followers, and Instagram followers.
Create interesting content and keep it current
Quality of content matters more than quantity of content but you also want to keep your accounts active. Talk about what your audience wants to hear. For example, your customers will want to know about new flavors and shop news. Vary your content and use images and videos as well. Make sure that the content is current and timely. Try posting at least once a week. If your account seems inactive, someone is less likely to follow it.
- Be engaged with other users: like, share, retweet, be a fan, repost, tag users, etc. Ask for feedback on new flavors, new toppings, etc.
- Respond to comments and mentions about your shop. Thank people who compliment your shop but address those that aren’t happy as well.
- Build your brand by highlighting how your shop is different but don’t limit yourself to self-promotion
- Take some pictures. Then, post appetizing pictures of frozen yogurt from your shop and fun pictures of your customers, preferably on Instagram. It’s shocking to us that some froyo shops have no (or few) nice pictures of the shop and the frozen yogurt.
- Retweet/repost your customer’s pictures
- Retweet the content that you like. It doesn’t have to be only about frozen yogurt. Share news about your local community if you’d like but don’t share things no one cares about such as how many people followed your account.
- Tag other users, encourage them to tag others on Instagram
- Use hashtags (#) when sharing photos and videos on Instagram and Twitter to make it easier for others to find you
- On Twitter, think of tweets as announcements or short headlines. Make sure your tweets are informative. Don’t tweet that you posted a new picture on Facebook or just include a link with no description. Compose your tweets so that you entice people to click on a link.
Tools to help you manage your social media accounts
Keeping up with social media may seem overwhelming but it doesn’t have to be if you have the right tools to help you manage your social media presence.
Try using Hootsuite to manage your social media accounts in one place. You can read all the message feeds within Hootsuite, schedule and publish messages and more. The basic version is free.
For building an audience, try Crowdfire, which makes it easy to find and build your target audience with features that make it easy to find the inactive accounts that you’re following, which accounts aren’t following you back, keyword follow, copying other accounts followers, whitelisting, blacklisting and more. It works for Twitter and Instagram. The basic version is free.
Don’t forget that Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have their own help centers with plenty of tips and advice.
