You have even created and implemented a social media strategy.
The hours spent researching and executing are tiring, but you know it’s worth the time and energy.
After all, capturing the attention of today’s online consumer is critical to your business.
But, yet – your efforts are less than fruitful.
Your tracking proves that engagement is low and your conversions are even worse.
So how can you improve your social media results?
Below are ten easy to put in place tips that you might not have thought of – but definitely should.
Use them today to instantly improve social media results tomorrow!
How to Build a Strong Social Media Presence
1. Give Your Audience the Content They Crave
While much has been written about increasing social media engagement, one basic fundamental will always stand.
Providing valuable content to a group of eager and hungry consumers will increase conversation and amplify your message.
Consistently analyze your analytics to assess what content resonates best. Do pictures, videos or links perform better?
Adjust your strategy and your content when appropriate to keep your social media content fresh and your information relevant.
Just look to experts like Ian Cleary with Razor Social and see how they add personality to social content effortlessly.
2. Offer Valuable Information
The single most effective way to build loyalty and trust is by sharing valuable and useful information with no strings attached.
Make use of your expertise by giving away a series of useful tips.
Fluff is nice, but information that can be used to save money, make money, and win in negotiations will keep your audience tuned in and coming back for more.
3. Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile
Optimize your LinkedIn profile with keywords specific to your expertise and location.
For example, if you specialize in short sales in Lexington, KY, your keywords would be “Short Sale Specialist Lexington Kentucky.”
These are searchable terms that allow people to quickly find you when searching real estate professionals in your area.
4. Leverage the Power of Instagram
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so share your story across this visual medium.
As one of the newer networks on the block, Instagram is rife with social media faux pas. If you want to expand your presence over there, you need to know a few do’s and dont’s.
Instagram Etiquette Do’s and Dont’s
- Never ask people to follow you; leave them to their own initiative. Instead, work on the image you wish to project and let followers naturally connect with you.
- Be considerate and limit your number of posts. Nobody wants your content to fill up their entire feed.
- You get what you give. Engage with other people’s photos and give them a reason to engage with yours.
- Use hashtags where appropriate, but don’t use hashtags that aren’t relevant to your photo.
As Sue B. Zimmerman, aka The #InstaGal says,
Instagram is a goldmine of a business-building tool that you don‘t want to overlook.
However, don’t just grab content for the sake of posting something. Be strategic and tailor your content to the network and your audience.
5. Incorporate Eye-Catching Images and Video
Consumers are visual. If you want to quickly capture their attention, add images that are eye-catching and pleasing to the eye.
Include Infographics, quotes, behind-the-scenes images of your business, local attractions within your area, charts explaining market trends, industry news or video tips.
Each option will allow your audience to obtain the message in a visual format, giving them a richer media experience.
Look to Nike as an example of one brand benefiting from the early adoption of visual marketing.
Their clever use of visual content, especially on Instagram, has created a flurry of activity.
Take a look at their profile and you’ll see how they’ve woven brand imaging, messaging and hashtags into a very effective strategy.
6. Ask Thought-Provoking Questions
Engaging social media fans and followers requires that you branch out from simply pushing out content.
People want more and in order to connect with you, they will require that you give more.
If you want to get your audience involved, you will need to ask questions, offer advice and give valuable insight. Your goal is not to simply entertain, but to make your audience think and want to respond.
Ask questions that inspire, ignite and fuel conversation.
7. Monitor Your Reputation
Monitoring your online reputation is an incredibly important part of your strategy.
Stay on top of what is being said about you and your business and respond proactively.
Social media should not be a bullhorn, used only to attract and convert leads. Instead, use your social media channels and other available online tools to listen in on conversations and maintain the established offline reputation you have worked so hard to build.
8. Use Twitter to Drive Website and Blog Traffic
Twitter can be used to increase traffic to your website or blog through thoughtful and strategic sharing.
Two strategies to increase website visibility:
- Tweet Your Latest Post: Notify your Twitter followers of your latest post by tweeting it as soon as you hit publish.
- Hashtags: Identify relevant hashtags based on industry, niche and location. Use hashtags within your tweets to place your content in front of a larger audience. Use Twitter Advanced Search to find top searches performed by and hastags used by your target market.
9. Create an Integrated Social Media Campaign
As a business professional, social media should complement your overall marketing strategy.
This means weaving traditional marketing and online or social marketing into a long-term plan and allowing each to support one another.
The best way to go about this is by adopting an integrated social media campaign for your business. Creating an omni-channel social media marketing campaign means linking your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+, and YouTube accounts to your overall marketing strategy.
This combines email marketing with landing pages and sales objectives so that all roads lead to your goals.
It also means that no matter where your potential client might be, they are able to find and connect with you.
Accomplish this by adding social media links to your Facebook fan page; including all social links within your email signature and adding social buttons to your website and blog.
10. Use an Editorial Calendar
Tired of staring blankly at the computer screen, agonizing over what to post to your social media channels? You need an editorial calendar!
An editorial calendar is an incredibly useful social media tool that creates consistency by acting as your posting roadmap.
Taking the time to create a calendar allows you to post on purpose, rather than using social media in a hit-or-miss way.
Final Thoughts
Social media requires investment. An investment of your time and energy.
Are you willing to go the extra mile?
Make a commitment today to put a system and strategy in place to grow your business through an active and vibrant social media presence.
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hi:i am working on a local city website from last 6 months. i am not been able to get a good traffic from social medias. no. of daily visitors is not increasing from 120.
any suggestions or related article you wanna recommend?
Hi Rebekah –
Really excellent stuff! I definitely agree that Instagram is still vastly under-utilized as a marketing tool. It seems like it is still fairly misunderstood. If anyone is interested, here are a few follow-ups to help get the most out of your Instagram efforts: http://bit.ly/1i9UJDi
Cheers!
It seems there’s two camps – one that’s underutilizing and one that’s spamming everyone’s feed with non-stop promotional content on Instagram. Then there’s the middle ground marketers who know how to balance both and are succeeding at growing a following.
Thanks for the links on Instagram – good stuff!
Hi Rebekah
Good to be here again after a bit gap!
The tips given here most of them i am following
as Swadhin said, i am new to the editorial calendar.
Thanks for sharing such a lot of thing in this single
post. I just signed up for the webinar on Aug 26
Waiting for the D Day
Keep sharing
Have a great week ahead
Best
~ Phil
Hi Phil – it’s great to see you! The editorial calendar is an awesome tool to create consistency and keep you focused on your main topic and message.
See you on the webinar!
Hey Rebeka, great tips in this article. I especially like 1, 2,5 and 6.
Not sure if these tips are in any particular order or not, but I think tip one is most important. You have to put out good content for the readers to keep them coming back for more.
Sharing valuable information without expecting anything in return is a great tip also. Everyone these days is looking for information, and what makes is valuable to one and not the other can be a mystery, but when someone finds it and it is helpful to them, they are sure to want more.
Images can be very powerful to get visitors to a blog. It is very important to pick that special image that adds to the message one is trying to convey.
I agree with you that you have to ask questions to the reader. This entices them to engage in the conversation. I use this a lot and try to put the question somewhere near the end as to live kind of a cliff-hanger, so to speak.
I am starting to use #8 lately, and it seems that if you know how to use Twitter, correctly, it can be a great boost to a blog.
Thanks again for these great tips and I will be sure to share this post.
I’ll tell you a (not so) secret about Twitter Rob…it has been my #1 blog supporter for years and my first true social media love.
I love it for its ability to drive targeted traffic, but more than that – create relationships that transition across every other platform.
It’s an amazing tool!
Thanks for the article . For myself, I discovered an interesting resource socialmention. But unfortunately it does not analyze the Russian market domains.
Have you tried using Hashtagify.me or Keyhole Anton? I’m not sure if they’ll work in the Russian market either, but they’re also great tools.
Hi Rebekah,
Thanks for the article! You inspired some ideas for my own blog post. However, I do have a question. I have read articles on how to get traffic to my blog from Instagram. To this day, I have never gotten any referral traffic from Instagram, so I stopped trying. Any suggestions? Do you have articles on this? Thanks
Janice
Hi Janice – that’s a great question! Appealing (eye-catching) images, targeted hashtags and detailed context within the comment about the post have been key for me.
It’s also a must to get out and engage people using those hashtags. Pique their interest and get them back over to your profile. It definitely takes time to cultivate, but it’s worth it.
Hi Rebekah maam,
Awesome tips as always. I haven’t used an editorial calender till now but I think I should get one. Just wanted to know how much time is optimum time spent in SMM every day/week.
Thank you maam 🙂
Hi Swadhin! It’s always great to see you here. As I mentioned to Phil above, the editorial calendar is an awesome tool to create consistency and keep you focused on your main topic and message.
It will reduce your time spent creating or curating content because you’re laser focused on what type of content you’re sharing. As far as how much time, an hour a day where you’re taking specific actions is more than enough to build your social channels in a big way.
Great post per usual, Rebekah! We have a social media content calendar but I think it’s needs an overhaul and this was just the reminder we needed! Thanks!
Hey David! I find that they’re always a work in progress. A living document that’s constantly molded to the latest campaign, target or goal. An overhaul is never a bad idea! 🙂
Thanks for the mention Rebecca, some great tips in this article!
Always my pleasure Ian. You make it easy to use you as an example!
Excellent suggestions! Thank you for sharing!
Hi Stacey – glad you enjoyed them. Thanks for stopping by!
I will do it
Awesome Mazda!