By Erik Williams on Sep 17, 2021
Social media isn’t just a hobby anymore; it’s a business tool. You can have the greatest product or service in the world, but if you’re not using social media to your advantage, you are probably leaving money on the table.
Social media is about engagement and interaction. The more you engage your potential customers, the more they’ll want to buy from you. But how do you get people engaged?
Whether it’s through organic social media or social media advertising, here are some immediate steps you can take to improve your social media presence.
1. Assess the Situation
The first step is documenting what social media profiles you currently have and how up-to-date they are. Many people think of social media in terms of the “Big 3,” that is Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And while those are Important platforms for social media, don’t forget about the other social media platforms out there. For example, if your business is B2B, you will want to be active on LinkedIn. If you have a visual product, Pinterest can help drive your business. And if your business lends itself to it, TikTok has gained immense traction.
However, you don’t need to be on all social media platforms just for the sake of being on them. Pick a few that fit your brand and your audience and focus your efforts. A Facebook advertising agency that also handles other social media can help.
Pro Tip: Take time to assess each of your chosen platforms for consistency, particularly in your NAP (Name-Address-Phone Number) information. Google considers NAP consistency to be a significant ranking factor across your web presence, so it is critical that this information matches on every profile you have online.
Social media management platforms are like the hub for your social media profiles. By using one, you can manage multiple accounts from a single interface. In addition, they let you post to multiple accounts at once, plan out and schedule your posts in advance and keep track of all your user interactions across your accounts.
That means you’ll know exactly what’s going on with every profile and won’t have to log into every account to see if there are any new messages or responses. Even better, you can manage all your replies from one interface.
There are quite a few platforms to choose from, each with varying degrees of pricing (some even have limited free tiers). The best known is Hootsuite (link to https://www.hootsuite.com/). You can start out with a free version that allows you to connect up to three social media profiles. You can upgrade later if your needs increase.
Now that you’ve got your profiles all in one place, it’s time to take the one step most people fail to take that many businesses fail to take. Post consistently!
Some use a hit-and-miss strategy of posting to their social media profiles, and they never really know the results of those posts. One week they’ll post every day, but other weeks, they won’t post at all.
How many times have you heard someone say, “I tried posting on social media, but no one responded”? Well, if your content isn’t consistent, then how would anyone ever notice?
Make a schedule and stick to it. Try to post at least once per day, but post several times a day if you can manage it. At the minimum, post a few times a week.
Once you have your schedule mapped out for organic posts, it’s time to think about paid ads. Paid social media advertising is extremely valuable for gaining visibility and driving traffic to your site. When people are looking through their Facebook newsfeeds or scrolling through Instagram, they’re generally just hoping to engage with something interesting. If you can catch their eye with a compelling ad, they’re much more likely to click through and check out your site.
The Internet is a big place. If you’re trying to build your social media presence, there are people out there with much larger audiences than yours. Seek out partners relevant to your brand and leverage their audience’s engagement for your company’s benefit.
Influencer marketing is an excellent way of getting your posts in front of a new audience, and it doesn’t have to be expensive at all. A great example of a well-known social media influencer marketing campaign was the ALS ice bucket challenge. The organization responsible paid influencers to film themselves dumping buckets of ice water over their heads for 30 seconds and nominating friends to do the same or donate money to charity.
In this day and age, people are always looking to find a deal online. So, if you can find a local business partner who will offer something of value such as coupons or free products, you can promote the deal to your audience.
This is a more indirect way of impacting your social media presence, but it can be highly beneficial for both parties involved if the right offer comes along. Just make sure you’re not spamming people with one-sided promotions and always give back in some form or another.
There are plenty of ways to get your content in front of new eyes. You can comment on other people’s posts, leave comments on articles that warrant a response and even ask the moderators of the group you’re interested in joining if you can post an article or announcement to their pages.
If you want to grow your audience, you’re going to need a lot of quality content. The more relevant and engaging that content is, the better chance you will show up in people’s feeds and win over new followers.
As you can see, there are plenty of different ways to improve your social media presence quickly, whether through organic social media or social media advertising. It all comes down to working smart and being consistent with what you’re doing.
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