Your social media presence is a key ingredient to a successful business strategy. You need to build a relationship with your customers, establish credibility, and increase visibility.
Data by PR Newswire reveals that 77% of small businesses use social media for marketing purposes. But with so many different platforms and strategies out there, it can be hard to know where to start. That’s why you need a concrete social strategy which may include setting clear goals, choosing the right platform, or creating meaningful social content.
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If you’re looking to enhance your social media presence and get more visibility for your brand, Here are five vital tips to take note of.
1. Define Your Goals
Without a clear purpose, your efforts may prove futile, and measuring your success becomes more difficult. Take the time to thoughtfully articulate your goals. Are you aiming to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, generate leads, or boost sales, through your social platforms?
Your goals will serve as a compass, directing your social media strategy and helping you determine which social media metrics to track when assessing your brand’s performance. When you establish your social media objectives, break them down into specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals. This approach ensures that your goals are not vague aspirations but actionable targets.
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For example, if you aim to increase brand awareness, a SMART goal could be to achieve a 30% increase in social media mentions within six months. Such clarity empowers you to chart a precise course for your social media journey.
When setting social media goals, it’s best long-term goals and split them into short-term targets. For instance, if you wanted to reach 10,000 followers in one year.
Here’s how you could break it down:
- Long-Term Goal: Reach 10,000 Instagram followers in one year.
- Quarterly Objectives: Gain 1,000 followers by the end of the first quarter.
- Monthly Objectives: Get 500 new followers by the end of the month.
- Weekly Objectives: Gain 125 new followers by the end of Y week.
Breaking down your goals like this will make them feel less overwhelming or impossible to achieve. It will also help you come up with more practical strategies for attainment.
2. Choose The Right Platforms
Choosing the right platforms for your business is critical. Not all platforms are created equal; each caters to distinct audiences and content styles. For instance, LinkedIn is known to have a more professional audience when compared to Twitter (X), and Instagram. So, if you’re a business-to-business (B2B) software brand looking to get more SaaS link-building opportunities, LinkedIn would be a good platform to reach professionals or thought leaders.
If you’re in the fashion industry which relies on visual content to showcase your products, platforms like Instagram and Pinterest might be your prime choices. To maximize your social media impact, you must select platforms that align with your goals and resonate with your target audience.
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So, take time out to research your potential customers and see where they’re more active. You can discover this by looking at competitor social media profiles to see which platform they’re thriving on. You can also do specific searches for your products or services across different platforms and see where the most relevant conversations are coming up.
Instagram as a suitable platform
For instance, if you search for “sport shoes” on Instagram, you’ll see a ton of active users posting pictures and videos about either the shoes they like or sell. See the example below. This means you can consider Instagram as a suitable platform if you run a shoe business:
If you run a search on Twitter (X), you’ll find numerous conversations about sports shoes. So that’s another good place.
But if you check LinkedIn, you’d barely find anything in the context of buying or selling sports shoes. This rules out LinkedIn as an option. You can make this search process easier if you use a social media monitoring tool like Determ.
Once you discover the social media channel that hosts the majority of your target audience, you can start building your presence on the platform.
Strategically choosing the right platforms allows you to focus your efforts where they are most likely to yield results.
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3. Create Valuable Content
Crafting valuable content is not just about churning out posts; it’s about delivering real value to your audience. You should have a well-rounded content strategy that accommodates informational, inspiring, entertaining, or educational posts. Quality should always take precedence over quantity.
Diversify your social media content types according to different preferences. This might include high-quality images, engaging videos, thought-provoking infographics, or interactive polls and quizzes. Each piece of content should align with your brand voice and message. For example, if you visit Nivea’s Instagram page, you’ll notice that they use a consistent color and message ton in their posts:
Nivea also shares useful content about skincare routines, skin types, or how to use their product. This is consistent with what the brand offers.
You can also use social media platforms to create more awareness about the new content you’ve shared on your website. This can help you generate social traffic to your website and possibly gain some conversions. See how Ogivy does this on its Instagram page:
Now, filling up your content calendar with high-value social media posts can be tasking. Thankfully, you can use generative AI tools like Writer to enhance your creative process. Here’s an example:
Generative AI tools are helpful with tasks like curating topic ideas or developing a piece of content. You simply need to use precise and detailed prompts to get the best results. If you’re just getting started, reading a comprehensive guide to generative AI writing tools may leave you with some helpful tips and suggestions.
By consistently providing valuable content, you will not only captivate your user base but also foster loyalty and trust.
4. Engage With Your Audience
Audience engagement should be a vital part of your social media marketing strategy. A study reveals that 90% of people buy from brands they follow on social media networks. If this is the case, engaging with your audience can help you build meaningful connections and foster a loyal community around your brand. Both are great for enhancing your social presence.
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One way to keep your audience engaged is by posting consistently, this will keep your brand in the mind of your potential customers. You can use social media management tools like Later or Buffer to schedule posts. It’s important to also consider the time you post. Share your content at a time when your audience is active and more likely to engage with your content. This way, you give your content a better chance of getting seen.
Sprout Social recommends the following posting times for different channels:
Social media channels like Instagram and Facebook also give you access to an analytics dashboard where you can find what time the majority of your audience is active. It’s best to check your account’s insights and use a posting schedule that aligns with the best-performing time. Here’s an example of how the timing insight looks on Instagram:
Also, engage by using your social media account to respond promptly to comments, messages, and mentions. Acknowledge and appreciate your followers’ support and feedback. Here’s an example of Grind responding to a Customer’s tweet about them:
Social Media Monitoring
Thankfully, social media monitoring tools can also help you take advantage of social brand mentions in real-time. They’ll help you find comments about your brand, both positive mentions and complaints— and you can engage with the poster accordingly.
Also, you can encourage discussions by posing questions and seeking input from your audience. Social media activities like these make your followers feel seen and heard.
If you can maintain exciting or interesting conversations with your followers, you may encourage them to interact with your content in the future. Not only can this boost your performance on social networks, but it can also have a significant impact on your online presence.
5. Collaborate With Influencers
Partnering with influencers on social media campaigns can provide a shortcut to gaining visibility within your target market.
Although macro-influencers (who have between 100,000 and one million followers) may be tough to reach or connect with, you can reach out to micro influencers instead. Micro-influencers (between 1,000 and 100,000 followers) typically have higher engagement rates and a more cohesive niche audience.
Reach out to micro-influencers in your industry and ask them to collaborate with you. Successful influencer partnerships rely on authenticity and alignment with your brand values. Ensure that the collaboration feels natural and genuine to your audience.
For instance, wooden map decor brand, @enjoythewood partners with influencers @dreamdaters to gain more visibility for its unique world map decor. Since @dreamdaters usually share travel content, they were a good fit for showcasing Enjoy The Wood.
The collaboration can be done through sponsored posts, product placements, or other forms of promotion.
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You can connect with your preferred influencers by sending them a friendly message on their social accounts or using the influencer’s email address if they provided any. Your message should be straightforward, warm, and friendly. Avoid being too pushy so you don’t scare them away.
In Closing
Enhancing your social media presence is a journey that demands dedication, strategy and an unwavering commitment to delivering value to your audience.
To effectively improve your social media presence, define clear goals, select the right platforms, create valuable content, engage authentically with your audience, and strategically collaborate with influencers. These tactics can also help you win the hearts of your ideal customers and gain a loyal following.
Remember, it’s not just about being present on social media; it’s about making a meaningful impact. So, put these strategies to work and watch your social media presence flourish. Good luck!
If you’re interested in learning more about how Determ can assist you in real-time sentiment analysis, please don’t hesitate to contact our experts and book a demo.
James Westfield is the Marketing Manager for Writer, an AI writing platform designed for teams. He has over 10 years of experience in the industry. When James isn’t in the office, you can find him on the golf course.
