The social media has become one of the most significant part of people’s daily lives and the daily interactions as well as usage of these platforms indicate the impact of these social media sites. The social media has become a huge monster that drives conversations on a range of topics and has a profound impact in shaping the public opinion. This is why it has become imperative for the different companies, brands and organizations to have an active presence on these social media platforms. There is a whole universe of untapped potential on these digital platforms and if you are serious about competing in the modern competitive market then it is essential that you have an effective social media strategy for your company or brand.
There are various advantages of cultivating and promoting your brand on the social media platforms. These benefits include improvement in the customer relations and customer service, improved communication with potential customers and elevating your business to the next level through smart social media campaigns and marketing tools. An effective social media strategy helps in driving growth of your business through the development of loyal and lasting relationships with your customers and clients. The brands that are active on social media have higher visibility and thus obviously record higher volumes of interactions and transactions. The digital age of social media has made it mandatory for brands to have an effective social media presence.
Different ways of building social media presence
There are a number of ways in which you can boost your social media profile and increase the interactions and improve your brand’s perception amongst the people. If you want to build an effective social media presence here are some of the methods and ways in which you can do it.
1) Automation: The automation is an important aspect that lets you tweet without requiring human intervention. These automated tweets or posts are scheduled to be posted at specific times which helps you in curating the content according your brand requirements. However you must avoid automation when you are replying to customer queries and interacting with them personally so that you provide a personal touch to your communication.
There are different automation tools available in the market that can effectively do the automation job for you. Some of these tools include Sprout Social, Buffer, Hootsuite, BuzzSumo and MeetEdgar amongst others. These tools provide automation and allow you to save time through planned and scheduled batches of tweets or post in one go. These tools also provide of monitoring the networks and ability to instantly respond to the messages.
2) Setting up relevant and achievable goals: Comprehensive planning and setting up structured, smart, result-oriented goals is very vital in turning your social media presence into unqualified success. The brands should set the goals and objectives that are relevant, measurable, time-bound, specific and achievable. For instance the smart goal for your social media presence would be increasing the rate of twitter response by 25% within the 1st quarter. When you channel the social media efforts into measurable, relevant and time-frame goals you provide the proper context and foundations for success.
3) Formulating strategy: It’s all well and good having the ambition of creating significant presence on social media but it is important that you have well defined pathway and strategy for achieving that target. You can designate a group of people or a special team for handling the social media strategy and activities. You must have a comprehensive briefing with them by discussing the different aspects such as individual responsibilities and roles so that they understand what is expected of them and there is sufficient clarity.
Another important thing to do when you are drafting a social media strategy is deciding on the frequency of posting and creating a right balance between the timing of your posts. The creation of content calendar will help in planning posts, constant reminders and it also helps in defining some crucial factors like: identification of your audience, interesting subjects and topics for the audience, relevant content that you have, the new content that you need to develop and curate, the different platforms on which this content will be posted and published.
4) Active engagement with the audience: While the content is the most crucial and fundamental part of any social media activity, it is not the only thing though. You can’t just post content and leave it away. The engagement and interaction with the audience is equally important as it helps in fostering relationships and gaining the trust of the audience. There are different ways in which you can interact and engage with the audience. These include commenting on their posts, initiating and participation in conversations, sharing relevant content, sharing content generated by users, posing questions and answering them, addressing criticism and complains and displaying appreciation for the customers.
5) Minimizing promotion time: While it is understandable why you might want to use social media as a promotional tool, the processes that drive growth and contribute towards positive trends for the brands don’t necessarily revolve around promotional posts. Active engagement with the audience and transparent communication tend to be more effective when targeting your goals. This is why it is recommended that promotional posts should be limited to 20% or below and the majority of the content should be dedicated towards meeting the requirements of the audience.
6) Maintaining constant presence: It is important to have a constant presence on social media for cultivating a reliable image and earning the trust of your customers. There are various automation tools that do the job of posting content at a pre-scheduled interval so that you don’t have invest your time on it. However you still need to spend some time for monitoring the different channels and accounts and responding to questions and queries wherever necessary. You must also understand the right frequency of posts which is suitable for different social media platforms.
7) Consistency is key: When you are posting and communicating on social media it is important that your remain consistent with the tone of your posts and activity and ensure that you don’t provide conflicting content. The content should be in sync with the image of the brand and there should be consistency throughout in your social media content and activities.
8) Using metric for progress monitoring: The social media continues to grow with every and it is important for you to identify the right platforms to amplify your content and message. Using advanced metrics that monitor the progress provides you context on your achievements and what still needs to be done.
9) Choosing the right platforms and networks: There are different social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn amongst others. It is vital that you identify the platforms which are most effective in targeting your desired audience and invest all of your resources and energy on those platforms.
10) Making content creation with the audience in mind: Understanding the audience is very crucial as far as achieving success with your social media engagement is concerned. The needs, interests and requirements of the audience should guide your social media content so that you can have the best chance of maximum engagement and measurable success on the platform.