Trying to conquer the social media landscape can be an uphill battle. Each platform engages audiences differently, making it difficult to simply post the same message and generate success across the board. Your carefully crafted content may engage hundreds of potential customers on Facebook, but your audience on Instagram prefers dynamic photos and hash tags to lengthy text. Social media is like a child with no parenting manual, and writing for your business day after day can become exhaustive and repetitive. Follow these five basic tips to help keep your page and yourself fresh, vibrant and relevant:
- Find your company’s voice
Your business has a personality, and just like you, the way it behaves will attract different audiences. Dig deep into your organization’s mission and determine who you want to interact with online. Do you want to be the expert and exude a sweet aura of professionalism, or are you looking for a fun, spicier image? This answer will vary, and can often include different tones, but it is crucial when it comes to crafting your message. - Listen to your audience
Insights are your friend. Every large social media platform has tools for business owners, and learning to use them is the first step to understanding your audience. Take a look back at your posts to see which perform best, and then sneak a peek at your competitors’ pages as well. If you notice that your audience engages more with multimedia content, focus your efforts on delivering quality videos or GIFs a few times per week rather than delivering daily posts full of text and stock images. - Be original, authentic and “social”
Creativity breeds engagement. Be bold and occasionally pepper your pages with fiery GIFs or short videos. Aim for two to three original posts each week, while keeping a pulse on trends that relate to your audience. A general rule of thumb for social media is to keep 80% of your content conversational and only 20% promotional – after all, this is “social” media, right? - Strike a balance
Social media is essential to developing a successful business, but it shouldn’t take precedence over your actual organization. To be efficient while still being effective, dedicate a few hours at the end of each month to planning out your posts for the following weeks. Schedule your posts in advance and you won’t have to stay glued to your phone every day. If an opportunity pops up, sprinkle that content into your newsfeed as you see fit. It may take some time to perfect your process, but after a few months of consistency, your business is likely to see a positive trend in engagement. - Get visual
When it comes to social media, writer’s block extends to creating graphics as well! At times, finding the perfect picture to complete your post can be frustrating. Take advantage of online resources, such as free stock photos (www.pexels.com), photo editors (www.picmonkey.com) and user-friendly graphics programs (www.canva.com). If you want to turn up the heat even further, spend time learning advanced programs such as Adobe Creative Suite to handcraft the perfect visual.
Not enough time in the day to spice up your organization’s social media? Leave it to the experts and give us a call!
