It’s no surprise that nowadays a majority of brands are on social media in some way, shape or form. However, having a social media presence goes beyond having a profile with content.
It means creating content tailored to the interests and needs of your target audience. By doing so, you can effectively build trust and develop a better understanding of your audience’s needs.
So in today’s blog post, we’re going to provide you some tips to help you improve your social media presence!
Set Goals and identify your target audience
Firstly, identify why exactly you’re on social media. Use SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely goals to help solidify your social media purpose.
Without setting a clear goal, it’s harder to improve your social media presence because you’re more likely to post aimlessly!
Once you’ve set clear goals for your brand, it’s important to identify your target audience.
Spend time some time looking at your audience personas, understanding what their challenges are and what brands they already love via social. This step can help you understand how your own social media presence can stand out from the crowd.
Tip; ‘Everyone’ cannot be an audience!
Seek relationships
Don’t let your social media strategy only be about gaining followers! While increasing followers can be great for brand exposure, it’s just as important, if not more, to establish valuable relationships.
Think about it: would you rather have 10,000 followers who ignore you, or would you rather have 1000 followers, of which 100 actively engage with you?
At the end of the day, the 100 followers you actively engage with are more likely to be inline with what you offer, which is why they’re infinitely more valuable!
So, how can you build relationships through social media? Here are some helpful tips:
- Answer questions people may ask
- Reply when people @mention you or share your content
- Don’t just Retweet and Like other people’s content; reply with a comment to start a conversation
stay active and be consistent
Building a social media presence can take time, but if you remain active and consistent, you’re bound to achieve your goals!
One way you can achieve consistency is by using editorial calendars! Editorial calendars are a great way to stay organized as they help you maximize your reach across multiple social media platforms!
You can create and edit your posts for each platform without having to jump between sites. In addition, you can maximize engagement by automating the time they go live! This way, you don’t need to worry about constantly posting in real-time.
Leverage trends
Every few weeks, there’s always a new trend or hashtag which makes its way around social media. During this time, it’s encouraged that brands piggyback on these trends!
Trends can boost your brand awareness and help you generate bursts of traffic. It’s an opportunity to think outside of the box and join in on something you already know your audience will enjoy. This way you can show off your brand’s personality!
Of course, you don’t need to participate in every trend you see! When in doubt, always refer back to your social media strategy and check to see if a trend is inline with your overall brand identity and target audience.
Adjust your posts to current trends
In addition to trends, it’s just as important to track current events. Nowadays, customers hold brands to a higher standard and expect them to speak out on social issues and be transparent in their stance.
Having said that, this needs to be reflected in your social media strategy – especially during times of social unrest, cultural events and news.
Tip: Sometimes it can be as simple as not posting anything for the day and pausing paid social ads.
Optimize your accounts for SEO
Search engine optimization is great way you can increase your overall presence! This varies from using effective hashtags to imagery, keywords and fully filling out your account information.
Tip: use the same profile image and handle on all social media platforms and make sure any links that lead your followers to other channels work at all times!
Prioritize accessibility
Accessible social content makes it easier for deaf, hard of hearing and visually impaired people to engage with your content. So, it’s important to add captions to any videos and consider using alt text when posting images!
Having accessible content can also help you reach audiences who may not be native speakers of your language!
In turn, prioritizing accessibility is essential to improving your social media presence because you can effectively engage with people who may have otherwise not had access to your content.
For more information regarding accessibility, check out our blog post on how you can make your website accessible for the visually impaired!
Be real
One of the worst mistakes to make on social media is coming off as the faceless corporation with zero personality.
With that being said, it’s important to be transparent and just be human! You don’t always have to keep a professional face, or only promote your products and services.
Rather, many brands these days crack jokes and aren’t afraid to talk to their followers like they would their friends. Moreover, as people are more interested in getting to know a company on a personal level, don’t shy away from showing the faces behind your accounts!
Whether it’s “get to know the team” posts, pictures of the office or behind-the-scenes videos, being authentic is essential to fostering valuable relationships with your followers.
Listen to your audience
Social monitoring is key to social media success.
Search topics related to your brand and see how audiences are responding to it. Also, search your company name and see what’s the general sentiment surrounding your brand. Accordingly, you can adjust your social media strategy and effectively respond to your customer needs.
Doing so, you’ll gain insight on your brand and be able to leverage it to stand out from your competitors!
Don’t be afraid to pay
If you want to improve your social media presence, don’t be afraid to pay. Consider investing in ads across platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to increase your brand exposure because not everything can be done organically.
Establish a monthly advertising budget and based on your goals and target audience, create ads that can be measured through quantitative metrics. For example, you can easily measure the ROI for the number of orders placed to the total cost spent on social media advertising.
Get visual and make your presence known
Invest in great creative assets to avoid posting low-quality content and beware of poor grammar. In addition, consider posting both videos and photos of your products, customers, events, behind-the-scenes and infographics!
Lastly, if you sell products, make your presence known through your service, products and packaging. How you may ask?
When your customers are happy with your business, 77% of customers will share their experience with another person.
To further add onto this benefit, you may be selling a product where your customers can help create marketing material for you!
Through the use of user-generated content, your customers can post photos with your products which you can then use on your social media. Having attractive packaging to go along with your products is the cherry on top and can actively encourage your customers to post about their experience.
This is especially true for e-commerce businesses because the unboxing experience is critical to standing out from competitors!
So, with this in mind, establishing a good social media strategy along with investing in great service, creative assets, and custom packaging can help improve your social media presence!
Interested in getting custom packaging, but don’t know where to start? Contact us to learn more about our custom packaging solutions. Whether you have your own design or need a helping hand, we’re with you every step of the way!
