How to build a strong social media presence
A robust social media presence is a must-have these days. On average, we spend almost two hours on different social media channels every day. That’s a great opportunity to all companies, no matter the size. If you develop a strong social media presence, Internet users will spend some amount of that time on your social media channels.
Building social presence and engagement is a unique opportunity to:
- build brand awareness
- boost your web traffic
- acquire new customers
- increase conversions from social media channels
- reach different audiences
- establish your company as an industry leader
What can you expect from this blog post?
- 1. Identify your problems
- 2. Set up SMART goals
- 3. Take a look at your audience
- 4. Forge meaningful relationships
- 5. Create an editorial calendar
- 6. Help your clients
- 7. Enhance your social media presence
- 8. Spice up your content
- 9. Be active
- 10. Be human
Why is social media presence important?
To be honest, your brand is completely lost without social media presence. Many customers check out brands’ social media profiles before making a purchase. Furthermore, Instagram, Facebook or YouTube are great platforms to conduct marketing and influencers’ campaigns.
Social media are also a natural place to look for feedback about your products. More and more clients use different social media channels to file a complaint. Monitor those mentions, and you’ll get access to your customers wants and needs.
Without a strong social media presence, you will lose many opportunities to attract and convert new clients and delight the old ones. Building a strong social media presence is as indispensable as the sun on beach holidays or snow for skiing.
How to improve your social media presence?
Your social media presence should include:
- regularly updating different social media channels
- building and engaging online communities around your brand
- monitoring your activities and adjusting your strategy accordingly
It sounds like a piece of cake. So, why do we still spot so many online profiles that aren’t using the whole potential of social media marketing? The main reason is that they don’t have a bulletproof social media plan.
To improve your social media presence, you don’t need a whole new division or a long-term retainer with an external agency. You will boost your business on social media with these easy steps.
Let’s dig in!
1. Identify your problems
The simple truth is that you can’t solve a problem if you don’t know about it.
It’s always a good idea to analyse your current social media presence and conduct a social media audit. Write down your goals, ongoing activities and possible threats.
Think about your audience – who are they? What do they expect from your social media profiles?
It’s a good idea to assess the efforts of your main competitors. Do they have any good ideas you can implement in your social media strategy?
Copying is of course out of the questions, but take a look at the frequency of their posts and cooperations with influencers. There’s always something to learn from the industry leaders.
2. Set up SMART goals
The second step in improving your social media presence is to set up a SMART goal. A great SMART goal for your social media strategy would be:
Increase our social media interactions on Instagram by 25% by the end of the third quarter
This is a social media SMART goal because it’s:
- Specific – we have the social media channel (Instagram) and the metric we will measure (social media interactions)
- Measurable – we can measure the goal when we set up a project in Brand24
- Achievable – it’s possible to reach this goal within the specified time frame
- Relevant – the goal is relevant because it will help to establish our brand authority
- Time-bound – we clearly defined when we have to meet our goal
3. Take a look at your audience
You can’t make everybody happy, that’s why your social media presence should be directed at a precisely selected crowd. To put things shortly – get to know your audience!
Take a more in-depth look at your buyers’ personas and identify their challenges, what do they like and dislike.
This is where social media listening tool, like Brand24, comes in handy.
When you set up a project, Brand24 will start to gather all the mentions with your predefined keywords from the Internet, including social media channels.
In the project creation wizard write down your company name, your branded hashtag or the name of your service. Remember to monitor all the possible ways that your audience could be referring to your product.
Give Brand24 some time to collect all the mentions. Social media monitoring tools, in general, don’t collect historical mentions!
After some time (it can be a couple of hours or a couple of days, depending on the volume of mentions) log in to your dashboard.
You will see all the mentions grouped according to social media channels. You will know on which channels you should expand your social media presence. That will determine the type of content you will prepare – there’s no point in investing in a Snapchat filter if no one will ever use them.
Companies with the best social media presence
While looking at your audience, examine your competitors as well.
Create a separate project for your main rivals and examine which posts generated the most social media reach and interactions.
The process is the same – insert the right keywords in the project creation wizard, but this time focus on phrases related to your opposition.
In the Summary tab, you’ll find the most relevant information about your competitors’ social media presence.
The most critical data include:
- the most influential profiles
- sources of the mentions
- the number of interactions
Here’s an example from my project I created for Dinette, a local bistro. You can see, who is talking about the restaurant, from which social media platform the sources come from and the changes in the number of interactions.
That gives you a general idea of how your competitors’ business is doing. If I were managing the social media presence of a restaurant, I would’ve checked the sources of the most popular mentions and analyse the audience of social media influencers.
Brand24 offers 14-day free trial, no credit card required!
4. Forge meaningful relationships
Maximizing your social media presence is all about, well, being social. It’s more beneficial for your social media presence to have 100 indeed engaged followers than 10 000 followers who don’t interact with your content at all.
Followers count is just a vanity metric.
I discussed this topic with our social media manager, and here are Basia’s tips for building engagement via social media:
- always answer questions from your audience
- reply to people who mention your brand or share your content
- always mention and tag people you reference in social media posts
- try to reply with a comment to start a conversation
5. Create an editorial calendar
Consistency is the key to success.
An editorial calendar has several benefits for your social media presence.
Firstly, you will get an overview of all the social media platforms. You won’t forget about any channel, and you’ll be able to spread the content according to the reach the social platform generates.
Secondly, you will discover the best time to post. You’ll be able to maximise your engagement while automating some of the processes. That will save you a lot of time.
It takes time to create a content calendar, although there are tools that will help you with, for example, CoSchedule. You will get an instant overview of your social media posts and will be able to schedule photos and statuses in advance.
6. Help your clients
In long-term, focusing on providing your clients with helpful pieces of advice will be much more beneficial for your business than hard selling.
You can answer the questions of your followers in two ways. For both, social media listening is incredibly useful.
Firstly, take your time to spot and answer all the comments you see on social media. I know, that the number of social media channels can be overwhelming but thanks to Brand24 you will see all of them in one dashboard.
Time is of the essence here. 32% of social media users expect a reply within half an hour, and 42% expect a response within an hour.
We value your time, that’s why we offer three solutions to answering social media queries promptly:
- integration with Slack – you will receive an instant alert when you connect your Slack channel with Brand24
- email alerts – get an email when there’s a mention you’re interested in. I highly recommend it if you want to receive notification from one particular social media channel. You can easily set it up with a filter.
- in-app alerts – Brand24 offers an app, where you can take a look at all your projects and get a notification when there’s a new mention
Secondly, there might be one common problem your followers are talking about. It’s a good idea to use your content marketing to answer such queries. Your clients will certainly appreciate your helping hand.
7. Enhance your social media presence
Social media optimization is much easier than SEO optimization. There are few key ingredients of successful social media profiles.
Start with setting up the same profile picture on all social media channel. Ideally, it will be your logo. Your audience will know on the spot whether they’re dealing with the same business, no matter the channel.
Fill out all the necessary account information. Wherever it’s possible try to include a link to your website and your branded hashtag or relevant keyword.
Develop your authority within an industry by sharing content related to your niche. Trigger the discussion and show your expertise to a wider audience.
8. Spice up your content
It’s easy to get stuck and post the same type of content over and over again. But it’s boring, not only for you but also for your customers.
See which posts resulted in the highest engagement and try to emulate these results.
That’s where Brand24 analytics comes in handy.
You already have your project set up and running. Go to the Analysis tab and choose the most popular mentions.
You will see the most popular mentions of the given author, ranked according to the number of likes, comments, and shares it received. That way you can see what resonates well with your audience and produce more content like it. You’ll create content people actually want to see.
You can further narrow down the results according to different social media channels. You will be able to prepare unique content, which will help establish the social media presence of your brand. When it comes to social media one size, do not fit all.
9. Be active
When you commit once to your social media presence strategy, you have to stick to it.
Inactive social media accounts look sloppy and unprofessional. If you want to have a successful social media presence, you have to show up every day with fresh, interesting content.
10. Be human
Last, but not least – show your human side. Your social media presence is a unique chance to show your personality.
No one wants to follow a faceless, characterless corporation. Social media channels are places to show off your sense of humour. Crack a joke and show your wit and sass from time to time.
My personal favourite is a Tweet from Denny’s Diner. The restaurant will take you on a trip that starts at their syrup.
Boost your social media presence with the right strategy
It’s all about implementing small tactics and strategies that will help establish your business on various channels.
Building your social media presence is all about small everyday activities, that in the end will help you develop social media accounts with prime engagement.
Do you have any tips for growing your social media presence? Reach out to us! Mention Brand24 online, and we will find you!
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