Tips for Building an Effective Social Media Presence

Most brands are present on social media platforms, but just because you are active on social media, doesn’t mean your strategy is effective. Social media platforms are the perfect place for companies and brands to reach out to current customers, as well as to grab the interest of potential new customers. Creating an impactful social media strategy takes time, research, and lots of planning—but you don’t need a huge advertising budget to build your social media platforms. By following these basic tips, you can get on the track to growing your social media platforms.

Consider Your Content

Before you start following new accounts and setting your content schedule, take a step back to make sure you understand the market your business is trying to reach. What do your followers want to see? How will you grab their attention? When is the best time to post?

Understanding your audience is the first step to drafting successful content. You’ll want to draft relevant copy that will grab their attention and keep viewers entertained. Your posts should also include informational links/resources and images.

Follow Relevant Accounts

As you start building your social presence, you should take the time to follow accounts that are relevant to your industry. The accounts you follow might include key media outlets, top press contacts, industry experts, and any other individuals or companies that are relevant to your industry, mission, and audience.

Following relevant accounts will also come in handy when it comes to engagement, which we’ll talk about more in our next point.

Engage, Engage, Engage

The key to ramping up your social media presence and gaining new followers is active engagement, as engagement allows you to socialize with the accounts you follow and the people who are interested in your company or brand.

To keep your social media platforms dynamic and active, your posts should consist of more than just your scheduled daily content — they should include comments and shares or retweets of outside content that relates to your brand. Your daily engagement will consist of liking other posts, responding to comments, and sharing relevant content from other accounts.

Social media platforms have become the place where customers come for support and product enquiries. Your followers will expect you to answer their questions or comments in a timely manner, so the speed at which you respond is important. Staying on top of inbound messages and engaging with relevant posts builds your credibility as a company and brings awareness to your name.

#Hashtags

We’ve all seen hashtags used across Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, but do we know why?

The hashtag is a label used on social media that makes it easy to find all posts related to a specific topic. For example, if you were interested in seeing what’s trending in the audio industry, you would simply search #audio and all posts with that particular hashtag will be filtered into your feed.

Using hashtags that are relevant to your brand or the industry as a whole will make your posts part of the conversation. But before you start adding hashtags to your daily posts, you’ll need to do research to understand what is trending in your particular industry.

Social media has become a one-stop shop for information, support, and news, but building your social media platforms takes time. Your customers and general followers will expect you to post relevant and useful content, all while staying active in the conversations relevant to your industry. Following these basic steps will start you on the path to establishing your accounts across all social media platforms.

Do you have questions about establishing a professional social media presence? Follow me on Twitter @PaytonStLawren1 – I’m happy to answer you’re questions!