Social media plays a big part in our lives these days. Most of us have at least one social media profile and visit it almost every day. This makes it a great platform for marketing and an essential place for your business to have a presence. Getting your business onto social media is more than just creating a profile on a couple of big social media platforms and posting a few jokes occasionally. It’s an extension of your brand onto these platforms and should reflect the personality of the business and its employees. It isn’t a task that should be taken lightly and can be quite a lot of work when done correctly. Getting the basics right doesn’t have to be difficult though.
Here are a few things you can focus on early on in getting your brand online and growing your following on social media.
Make Sure Everything is Updated
If you’ve had profiles on social media platforms before and they’re out of date, the first thing you’ll want to do is make sure you have full admin rights to them and then update them. Update everything you can in the about section, adding opening times, your physical locations and contact details. Also, look through any feeds and old posts on your profiles and delete the ones that are irrelevant or might not accurately portray your business image as it is now. Social media goes through cycles where particular content works better than others at any given time, so understanding what is working now and modernising any existing profiles is a great first step.
Consider Hiring an Agency
It can’t be stressed enough that running a brand on social media, particularly for a bigger company, is hard work and can take up a lot of time. It might be worth considering outsourcing your social media requirements to an agency who are experts in their field and can really boost your online presence. It’s important that your work is of a high quality and professional. There are agencies that can help with a great many things when it comes to professional looking business assets, like Buffalo 7, a design agency specialising in the art of presentation design. The same can be said for your social media. Having an agency onboard that intimately understands how to be successful on these platforms is critical.
Share Content Regularly
There’s little point in creating amazing looking, complete profiles on social media if you aren’t going to post and share content to them. Consistency is key here – you don’t want to be quiet for weeks and then suddenly post 10 things; you want to post consistently. Even here, however, there are things to consider. You don’t want to post too often and cause followers of your brand to become tired of seeing your posts, yet you want to post often enough so they don’t forget about you. Most experts recommend posting 3 or 4 times a week to hit that sweet spot. Don’t try and post every day and don’t post just for the sake of it. Make sure your posts are interesting and engaging for those that see them.
Aim for Engagement
Your content should be a good balance of advertising and content designed just to be engaging. Creativity is key here, and the ability to create posts that people will want to interact with is more likely to get your posts shared and that only means their organic reach will increase. Try to avoid posting pure adverts all the time but do post achievements and news about the goings on of your brand. Keep your posts fun and light-hearted but remember to stay on brand.
Don’t Ignore Groups and Pages
Groups are a great place for your brand to interact with people because usually they are a collective of people there for a common purpose. If you’re a car modification business, for example, joining some car mod enthusiast groups and interacting with the people in the group on a personal level and offering assistance and advice without just marketing to them is likely to get your brand known amongst those who might later need your services and your name will be top of mind. Groups can also give you the opportunity to see what people are talking about in your brand’s space and get an idea of emerging trends that you can expand to.
By sticking to the basics and making your social media profiles engaging, fun and helpful to your customers, you’re well on your way to creating a successful social media presence. You shouldn’t underestimate the amount of time it can take to create a really great brand on social media thought. The best piece of advice you’ll get, though, is to experiment and see what your customers and followers enjoy and adjust what you post and interact with accordingly.
