Learning how to increase social media presence is a vital part of digital marketing. If you’re new to the game, though, you likely have no background knowledge to work with. Make the process easier with the help of these tips.
11 Tips on How to Increase Social Media Presence
Social media is a mainstay of the modern marketing era. Businesses flock to various social media platforms in an effort to advertise their brands, products, and services. The benefits of social media for business are clear. It’s an affordable form of advertising, allows you to personally connect with your audience, and can positively influence your bottom line. Additionally, social media gives the little guy a chance to level the playing field where larger brands usually dominate.
But, you can’t effectively promote what you’re selling without first establishing a presence. If you want to get started on that, here are some tips on how to build a social media presence:
1. Join the Right Platforms
Before learning how to use social media for business, you must first choose the right platforms. There are so many platforms available — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tumblr, LinkedIn — but you don’t have to join all of them. If you try to juggle multiple social media accounts all at once, you risk not being able to update them on the regular.
To start, only join one or two channels. Find out where your target audience is spending most of their time and go with that. Remember that building a social media presence is more than just having a profile on each platform. It’s mostly about your ability to maintain your profile, update your feed with relevant content, and grow your audience.
2. Work on Your Profile
Social media marketing is a great way to let the world know who you are and what you have to offer. It’s a tool that allows you to connect to your audience and boost your brand visibility. As such, you must make an effort to craft a good profile.
To do this, think about your brand. Your profile photo and cover photo should stay true to your branding. Make sure to use high-quality photos, too, as low-quality ones can send the wrong message. Write a captivating description for your bio. Fill out your contact information and other important details. Remember to use relevant keywords to improve your SEO as well.
It’s equally essential to be consistent across all platforms, too. When you fail to keep a consistent style and tone, you risk coming across as disjointed and incohesive.
3. Work Towards a Goal
Setting a goal is an important step in how to grow your social media presence.
What exactly do you want your socials to accomplish? Do you intend to use it to generate leads or engage with your audience? Is it for driving sales or just for general customer service?
You can’t come up with a good social media marketing strategy if you don’t have a concrete objective.
When determining your goal, remember to be SMART — go with a Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound goal. A good example of a SMART goal is wanting to improve engagement by 20 percent by the end of June.
After coming up with your goal, now it’s time to create a strategy to achieve it. You’ll likely need to do some market research to learn about your audience, what they like, and how you should reach them.
4. Share Engaging Content
Now that you’re on social media, you can’t just post random content and expect your follower count to climb. You need to know what kind of content your audience wants to see and then work to create that.
Don’t be afraid to include photos and videos in your posts. Social media is inherently image-heavy, so find a way to work visuals into your content. Additionally, people are more likely to remember what they saw rather than what they read.
It’s also a good idea to find out what the latest trends are and jump on the bandwagon. After all, they’re called trends for a reason. Of course, don’t just pick a trend and go with it. You must still make sure the content you put out is relevant to your brand or product and offer value to your audience.
5. Use a Content Calendar
Managing one social media account is easy. But, when that number starts to increase, you’re in for a world of confusion. You’ll start to find it difficult to juggle multiple social media platforms and make sure you’re posting the right content on the right channel. To make this task easier, you should use a content calendar.
With a content calendar, you can schedule posts for each of your channels ahead of time. This will allow you to keep track of your content and make sure you avoid repeating posts. A content calendar will also help you post regularly. People will forget about you if you fail to constantly update your socials. Additionally, you can manage all of your accounts from one neat place. This eliminates the need for jumping from one site to another.
There are plenty of content management tools you can use, such as BuzzSumo, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social. Find the one that suits your needs and matches your budget.
6. Have a Consistent Personality
It’s hard to connect with a faceless brand or company, so try your best to veer away from coming off as one. Find your voice as a business. Don’t be afraid to be humorous from time to time and communicate with your audience on a more personal level. In other words, be human.
Make sure to remain consistent with your personality, though. Remember that social media for business is also about branding. Therefore, the content you share should align with who you are. A good way to do this is to orient your social media managers on your specific voice or character as a brand.
7. Encourage Others to Share Your Posts
If you want to know how to build a social media following organically, the share function is a valuable tool. When people share your posts, their followers become exposed to your brand. This, in turn, increases brand awareness. If you’re having trouble getting people to share your posts, consider offering an incentive. Provide a discount code or raffle a product away. Oftentimes, mere words won’t encourage them to tap that share button.
8. Engage With Your Audience
It’s not enough to simply share content on your social media feed — you also need to respond to the comments.
Part of enhancing engagement and, by extension, increasing your social media presence, is forming a connection with your audience. Create a bond with your followers by liking their comments, answering their questions, and acknowledging their opinions. Start a conversation. When you mention people in your posts, tag them.
9. Promote Less
Although making a profit is a business’s primary objective, social selling is not a critical part of how to increase social media presence. Don’t focus on promoting your product all the time. In fact, people hate ads and actively try to avoid them. Rather, work to form relationships with your audience and offer support when necessary.
10. Pay for It
Another way to expand your social media presence is to pay for it. This is perhaps one of the most obvious social media tips, but that doesn’t diminish its value. And, no, this doesn’t mean you should buy followers. Social channels like Facebook and Instagram have ad campaigns that you can use to your advantage. You can promote your posts for a daily budget limit that you set. It’s a great and affordable way to reach a wider audience.
Influencer marketing is also a viable advertising tool. You don’t necessarily need to partner with influencers who have large follower bases. You can start small and partner with a local influencer whose audience is the same as yours.
11. Take Advantage of Analytics
Many social media platforms offer analytics that allows you to monitor important metrics. This includes the number of reactions, comments, and shares on a given post, as well as how many clicks a link got. You can also keep track of when and what time of day your users are the most active. Using what you learn from these metrics, you can adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.
Social Media and Business Go Hand-in-Hand
Nowadays, it’s expected for businesses to be on social media. It’s a convenient way customers can find your business as well as learn who you are and what you have to offer. If you want to know how to increase social media presence, keep these social media marketing tips in mind.
Tanner Grey specializes in web design and digital marketing solutions. Our services can help any business no matter the size. Call us at 844.500.1339 today or contact us online to learn how we can help you.
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