How to Build a Strong Social Media Presence?
Social Media Presence
Having a strong presence on social media is vital for a modern business to thrive. Social media is a place to refine your brand representation and engage with both current and potential customers. Through social media platforms, you can establish your credibility and reach out to people who want to hear about your digital business.
Tips To Build Your Social Media Presence
Use Consistent Photos, Headshots, and Logos
Brand consistency across social media channels is essential. You want to be easily recognized, yet so many small business owners are content to leave up digital profiles with mismatched logos and photos, some of which are blurry and improperly sized.
This type of carelessness causes unnecessary confusion for your customers and can make you seem unprofessional. Instead of using whatever photos you have handy or simply taking the one-size-fits-all approach, take the time to create a consistent brand image across all networks and optimize your chosen photos according to each network’s specifications.
Create and Share Industry-Adjacent Content
It’s only natural that you should want to present yourself as an expert in your industry, but the content you create, curate and share can’t always revolve directly around your business. If all you do is spout thinly veiled advertisements, you’re going to lose followers.
Don’t drive your customers away by being a self-centered salesman. Instead, think about your audience. What can you provide to pique their interests or fulfill their needs? Valuable, industry-adjacent content can be a great way to stay top of mind without wearing out your welcome.
Create a Schedule and Post Content Regularly
One of the most common mistakes you’ll see with social media for small business is a lack of consistency in the posting schedule. This not only affects post visibility, but it can also make it hard to gain traction with search engines.
Maybe it’s the mindset that once you’ve posted, the content is on the wall for the duration, and there’s no hurry to follow up. But that line of thinking is flawed, as most people aren’t checking your marketing profile page with any regularity. Instead, followers see your content as they scroll through their personal Facebook feeds.
Make the Most of Visual Content
Visual content is a big deal. In fact, 82 percent of marketers say images are an important to very important part of social media content optimization, and 52 percent say video content produces the best ROI.
Meanwhile, visual social networks are starting to rise through the ranks. Instagram has over 800 million monthly users, and Pinterest isn’t far behind with 100 million monthly users.
Don’t Be Afraid to Advertise
It’s natural to shy away from paid advertisements on social media, but paying to play isn’t always a bad thing. Social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn have access to more data than you can imagine, which makes it possible to run highly targeted, actionable campaigns that you just couldn’t run elsewhere.
Now you can go beyond location and demographic-based marketing and delve into the world of interest-based and behavioral targeting.
Don’t Rule Out Automation
The word “automation” doesn’t always conjure the friendliest of visions. It sounds impersonal and detached. But when done properly, automation can be a real time-saver.
Let’s face it, your social networks require nurturing, and you can’t always give your followers the time they deserve. Automation is an efficient means of striking up social media conversations — conversations that you can later join and continue personally.