Social Media Tips

With over half the world’s population on social media, it is no longer an option for companies to have an online presence – it is a necessity. Businesses both big and small utilise social media to grow their online presence, gain followers and connect with their audiences. However, the sheer number of platforms available and their different uses can make building your online brand feel like a daunting task. But even if you are just getting started or are a pro at this, there is always room for improvement. So here are 5 simple tips to up your social media game and successfully market your brand.

1. Create a Strategy
Creating a strategy for each platform is important as each one is different and attracts separate audiences. To create engagement on each platform you will need to understand what works best for each one, the way to consider this is:

• Why am I using this platform?
• Who is my target audience?
• What brand message am I trying to push?
• What content works best on this platform?
• How can I make my content unique?
• Ensure to use the 80/20 rule, especially on Facebook and Twitter

2. Be Consistent

Depending on what platform you are using, posting content regularly is always a good rule of thumb to follow. Using a social media strategy and creating a content calendar for each platform is another way to keep things on track and can help in keeping your socials active when it’s a busy time for the business. It will also lay out what kind of content to post over a long period, helping you to ensure the 80/20 rule is in place.

Regardless of your business size and what platform you are using, be conscious of keeping these aspects consistent:

• Brand image 
• Brand message
• Posting frequency
• Hashtags 

3. Create Engaging & Interesting Content

To stand out from the crowd you need to create good engaging content. So, what is good content? While that term is subjective and depends on the platform, here are some general tips for good content creation:

Newsworthiness

Anything that is considered newsworthy is a good idea to generate content around. The pillars of newsworthiness are timeliness, proximity, conflict and controversy, human interest, and relevance.

Media

Images don’t need heaps of text, use the caption for this!

Using gifs or videos is excellent – the movement attracts the audience’s attention and is more interesting to look at than just an image. (We’re suckers for a good GIF, if you haven’t noticed)

Get your face out there! Show off your staff and make your business more welcoming.

Storytelling

Use storytelling to engage the audience and develop a brand voice. 

It is a creative way to convey your message without seeming like you are trying to sell a product.

Trends

Current digital and societal trends are important to stay relevant, but always make sure that it aligns with your brand.

4. Engagement

Engaging with your followers! You need to build that community and make it feel more personable, to do this include:

• Liking and responding to comments
• Live streaming
• Creating polls and quizzes
• Post content that starts

5. Track and Analyse Metrics

Diving deep into social media analytics is one of the most important steps to do when building your brand online. Thankfully, most social media apps already track your metrics if it is a business account. With the data and statistics, you can effectively analyse your strategy and continue to drive performance.

In a nutshell…

Creating a targeted and effective social media strategy will improve your performance online, using unique ways to interact with your audience will increase your reach and connect with your target audience. Most importantly, analysing your metrics will help you determine whether you are on the right track!