Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

What is the best time to post? Should I use hashtags? And what type of content will do best on which platform?

These types of questions plague start-up founders as they navigate social media as a marketing tool for their business. Social media is essentially just one tool in the marketing toolkit.

Four social media moguls in the Knoxville community shared how they “put social media to work” for their companies. The panel included Halee Sprinkle with Czech Yourself Marketing (CYM), Holly Rainey with the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center (KEC), Erika Biddix with Aught, and Abby Hassler with Piper Communications.

The first question – How often should you post?

“It varies from business to business,” Sprinkle said. “It’s really about the quality of content versus the quantity.”

The panel agreed, emphasizing that the algorithms for posting vary on a day-to-day basis. Most platforms don’t penalize users for irregular posting; however, the more often you post, the more frequently users will have the opportunity to interact with your content. For example, Rainey shared that she prioritizes creating content for Facebook and Instagram stories every day and plans out her posting.

“Creating content for stories is ‘no pressure’ on your social media presence. People see your brand, but it disappears after 24 hours. It doesn’t have to be highly edited, creative, or planned. People enjoy behind-the-scenes content,” she said.

As a small business owner, Biddix said she relies heavily on social media planning applications to schedule out her posts for the whole week. Instead of spending an hour every day posting to each platform, she uses schedulers like Hootsuite, Sprout, or Loomly to automatically send pre-created content.

A lot more goes into content creation for businesses than for individual and personal accounts. Business owners always need to keep the brand and message they want to convey in mind. For example, if you are building a service-based business, you will want to be radically responsive to direct messages, comments, and questions on your social media accounts. If you are trying to sell a product, is your content effectively sending customers through the marketing funnel?

Aside from social media, other marketing mediums are still effective.

“In the agency space and with niche audiences, email marketing is still king,” Hassler said. “For business-to-business (B2B) content, we primarily focus on email newsletters and LinkedIn.”

The LinkedIn space holds a lot of untapped potential, the panel said. For example, LinkedIn started a newsletter platform for individuals and companies to share updates with subscribers. It’s a strong platform for connecting with highly niche audiences, B2B content, and thought leadership opportunities.

So, what platform is your favorite?

The Women in Entrepreneurship group or “WiE” is a community of nearly 3,000 women entrepreneurs that hosts regular monthly meet-ups and is an active Facebook Group community.

For more information about upcoming meetups, visit the website and join the Facebook group.

---