We asked CN Group's social media specialist Helen Statham for her top tips and predictions for 2016.

As well as being CN's social media guru, Helen works with several local businesses.

How much time do you need to put in?

“It depends how much time you have, but deciding what you want to achieve on social media will be key to determining how much time you need to spend on it.

“For example, if you want to use your Twitter profile as a customer service tool it will require constant vigilance during the working day (and beyond) so all questions can be answered in a short time. Smaller businesses may want to use Twitter as an online marketing tool to promote their website, so posting once a day with new content and extra time to interact would be enough.”

Why do you care so much?

“I find it really interesting. There’s so many ways you can use social media, from starting communities and sharing interesting content, to discovering useful and inspiring information. It’s also a great way to meet valuable contacts.”

2016 social media strategy?

“Everyone’s social media strategy should answer the following questions: 

>What do we want? 

>How are we going to achieve it? 

>Did it work and can we do better? And repeat.

What’s the biggest mistake people make?

“Scheduling content is great. In an hour you can plan to send out all of your marketing messages in accordance with your social media strategy for the rest of the week. However, this misses out one important part of social media - listening.

“When you plan time for social media, you should also make time to take part in conversations, respond to comments and questions - and that includes the negative comments.”

2016 social media trends?

“For many Facebook business pages, users can use insights to measure likes, comments and shares - but some of you may have noticed a new graph that’s appeared measuring reactions, comments and shares.

“Soon users will be able to do more than simply ‘like’ an update, we’ll be able to press a button to express that we love an update, find it funny, express that it makes us sad or angry.” “For businesses that understand the importance of listening to it’s audience on Facebook, this is going to be a really useful tool in 2016. Definitely something to think about in your social media strategy going forward.”

Ultimate social media tip

“Your social media strategy is key. Having one in place means you can always refer back to it to ensure that you’re posting something relevant every time."

To find out more from Helen about how to improve your social media, email helen.statham@cnmedia.co.uk or find @_helenstatham on Twitter.