10 Things You Can Do Today To Improve Your Social Strategy
There's no such thing as magic when it comes to growing your social media following.
Sure, you can purchase followers on Facebook or buy an Instagram account that's already got them. But each week it seems like social platforms are changing their algorithms to value engagement over anything else in user feeds.
While many brands resort to the "follow/unfollow" method or just spamming feeds with advertisements, the time has come to put in real effort to develop a social strategy that engages consumers without spamming their feeds with advertisements or log off.
1. Engage in online communities to learn and connect. Whether it's joining a Facebook group for beginning designers or following the host of a weekly Twitter chat in your industry, you'll learn tips and tricks from people who are running brands just like yours.
2. Take part in an online course from an industry leader. There are free e-courses out there for each social platform. You can find courses on Pinterest, or ask around in Facebook groups.
3. Focus on what the consumer needs, not what you are offering. It might seem counterintuitive, but people don't want to see advertisements in their social media feeds. There's an entire industry for adblock software that proves this. Don't be spammy, provide value instead. Answer questions consumers have, show innovative techniques or explain how-to use your product in their daily lives.
4. Do more of what works and less of what doesn't. Analyze the top and bottom 3 performing posts on each of your social platforms. Don't waste time on something your audience isn't responding to.
5. Look at what your competition is doing. You can copy their strategy and avoid their mistakes, as long as you don't directly copy their graphics or words.
6. Update your profiles to include keywords in your biography and new images. You've probably had the same description and picture for a while, it's time
to update!
7. Optimize your content for maximum exposure. Include your targeted keywords and relevant hashtags so you'll be found. Then link to your website. The goal is to be seen on social media and then guide readers to your webpage so you can pitch for a sale. Include a call-to-action such as "Click to subscribe!" so consumers know what to do once they get there.
8. Repurpose content across platforms. If something worked well on Pinterest, chances are it'll work well on Instagram, too. Split your verticle infographic into several smaller square graphics for a multi-image post for Instagram. You can also repurpose infographic information into FAQ graphics for Twitter!
Social media involves daily upkeep and engagement with followers. So don't waste time reposting an Instagram picture natively to Twitter! Use IFTTT to automate between platforms and schedule anything that you can through Buffer or Hootsuite.
10. Document any work that you do.
Social media involves experimentation, just like hard sciences. Keep notes of why you did or didn't continue making certain posts or trends you notice in your industry. You'll be glad you did when you can't remember why you decided to start a Tumblr blog a month from now.
It's easy to get overwhelmed because there is always something you could be improving. Just start with one of these tasks. It might seem like other brands pull followers out of a hat like magicians with rabbits, but we promise it's all in the strategy.
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