Social media success goes a long way in promoting a business, a product, or even a person. According to Hootsuite, there are now more than 3 billion people using social networks across the globe. This being said, it is imperative to take advantage of social media to promote sales and popularity.
However, if not done right, you will find yourself giving more time and receiving inadequate results. Yeah, it’s tough. Don’t sweat, this article will discuss some of the best ways to use social media effectively to ensure the success you came looking for.
While strategies to achieve social media success may vary based on platforms, here are a few common tactics that can be implemented over every platform:
Table of Contents
Outline Your Goals
This one is a no-brainer. It is important to know exactly what you plan to achieve before you try to pursue it. But your goal shouldn’t be something like “I want to attain social media success and expand my profile.” It’s not a bad start, but you can do better than that. By when do you plan to accomplish your goals? How will you go about it? How is this going to help me? Is my goal attainable right now? These are all questions you need to ask yourself before you get started.
Create Interactive Content
No one is going to follow you if you seem boring. People judge a profile from the content they post so if you want to bring in the crowd, you have to make your audience want to engage with your posts. There are many types of interactive posts that you can choose from to keep your feed fresh and entertaining.
Maintain A Posting Schedule
This easy tactic goes a long way in helping you get the most out of content as well as keeping you organized by keeping a flow in your content and a pattern within your account. And with a little creativity, you can avoid looking monotonous. By creating certain themes in your posting schedule you are giving your followers something to look forward to. And NEVER go into ghost mode. That is a one way ticket to social media failure, so create a schedule that works and stick to it.
Respond to Comments
You’ve probably heard the phrase “communication is key”. Responding to comments on your page demonstrates reliability AND relatability. You want your audience to feel comfortable with you, and talking to them plays a huge role in that. Not only does this show that you care, but this also ties into online reputation management. In short, online reputation management is the act of protecting or defending your online image which is important to gain and retain followers.
Optimize Your Account
This is like search engine optimization but for social media. Optimize your account by appropriately completing bios, choosing good usernames and URLs, incorporating images, and most important being concise. Adding hashtags to posts and bios can actually help your page rank better in Google, but be careful not to go overboard with them. Don’t make captions excessively long either. A little goes a long way here.
LinkedIn Success Tips
Although older than other social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, LinkedIn is still a platform that should be taken advantage of to ensure social media success. According to TopResume, the platform hosts more than 600 million professional profiles, which means nearly an unlimited supply of network, connections, and jobs.
As a professional social media network, LinkedIn provides several opportunities that other entertaining platforms can’t. This means that this is a great hub to showcase yourself as a person. You can display your achievements better here than anywhere else. This is an awesome place to market yourself, which in turn is bound to bring in attention to your profile and ultimately give you the success you desire.
Your plan to achieve social media success on LinkedIn should have a different approach from the other social media platforms. Remember, this is a professional and career oriented platform so take advantage of self promotion. Because of LinkedIn’s popularity, your profile is sure to come up when your name is entered in a Google search.
Here are some tips to tackle LinkedIn:
Be Specific
Don’t generalize on headlines, your profile, or any of the experience you’ve had. The only way to ensure success on social media is to stand out, and the best way to do this is being specific. Generalizing will risk your authenticity and make you look like everybody else. It’ll also keep recruiters and other viewers engaged in your profile.
Make Your Account Look Good
First impressions don’t have to be in person to be important. First impressions create images and reputations, and a bad first impression can kill any attempt at social media success. Create a great image by ridding your profile of anything that looks unprofessional. This includes pictures, posts, texts or anything else. Up your LinkedIn game by getting a professional headshot if you can and assigning the picture to your profile.
Make Connections
Connections are everything to someone who wants to work their way up to the top. You’ve probably heard people say raw talent and skills alone doesn’t make a person famous or necessarily successful. If this is your aim, you have to market yourself correctly and connect with people who will highlight your image. The best way to do this is to join groups on LinkedIn that interest you or are related to your field or work. Growing your network this way can give you a sense of credibility, helpy you attain status, and gain more experience. Overall, this is something you cannot ignore if you hope to attain social media success.
Don’t Be A Dime A Dozen
Even though this is a professional platform, you want to avoid copy pasting your resume into your profile. But this isn’t an entertainment platform. Agreed, but that isn’t an excuse to be boring. People love stories, so take this opportunity to craft your own without looking bizarre. Your summary should be interesting. Essentially, try to create a narrative in the most professional way possible.
Ask for Recommendations
Receiving recommendations from other people on LinkedIn establish a sense of credibility, make you look legit, and make people want to follow you. If you’re going to seem like a show off (and you should), you’re going to need some endorsements. And after all, nothing makes you look better than praises from people in high ranked positions.
Twitter Success Tips
Twitter, on the hand, is a little less professional. If LinkedIn was suit and tie, you can think of Twitter as business casual. Twitter is so simple yet it’s so powerful, but it is not meant for the same approach as LinkedIn. Social media success on this platform is going to need a different approach.
As opposed to LinkedIn, Twitter is where you connect with the people. If you are self promoting yourself on Twitter, you’re digging your own grave. Twitter is about getting your audience to become fond of you. Here are some tips to bring in an audience from Twitter:
Retweet Your Tweets
Most people think this is actually something you should avoid doing because it risks sounding redundant, but that is actually not the case. A study shows that most reposting and liking happens within the first hour of the tweet, so the chances of your tweet being noticed after that is very low. That being said, it is possible that your tweet may not get the attention it deserves right away. Don’t give up, retweet it.
Show Off Your Extrovert
This platform is essentially a micro blog, don’t be afraid to speak up. Make sure to always follow the community guidelines. You want to create content that your audience craves, rather than just speaking your mind.
Establish a Following to Follower Ratio
If you follow too many people and don’t have enough followers this will drive people away from your account. By having more followers than the amount of people you follow, you create a good first impression and make people think you’re worth it.
Retweet Other People’s Tweets
Retweeting valuable content helps your followers become more aware, thus creating a bond of trust. This will also help you gain retweets because if your followers view you as someone knowledgeable, they will retweet your information as well. Additionally, people want to be retweeted, so if you retweet their content they are more likely to follow you. In sort, when you retweet, they retweet, creating a continuous cycle of social media success.
Social Media Marketing Tips
Social media marketing has many benefits and you should definitely take advantage of these two platforms to market your business, product or service. To market on these platforms, it is crucial to optimize your page for search. You can do this by including keywords, links, and sharing relevant content.
You should also take advantage of ad campaigns when you can. Advertising on social media is a great way to get word out there, given how popular it’s become. Running deals and promo codes through social media will also boost your sales, and people are more likely to see them as opposed to if they were just listed on your site. There are also mistakes to avoid when marketing on social media, as these will hinder social media success.
Don’t Know Where To Start?
The experts at SEO Design Chicago will help you get started on your journey to social media success today. Whether you need help with social media marketing or just want to boost your profile on platforms, SEO Design Chicago is here! Contact us today.
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