How to Build a Valuable, Strong Social Media Presence For Your Brand that Earns Leads and Return
Social media is your ticket to a broader following, more exposure, and improved online ROI for your brand. Your content marketing strategy can really get a boost from a strong social presence, in particular. In fact, BrandWatch calls social media + content marketing “the dynamic duo.” For example, the more engaged and the bigger your social following, the more readers you can draw in with every new content piece you put out and promote. That’s exactly what you want from this powerful combo. You want social media to serve your content marketing, and your content marketing to enhance your social platform. Of course, for the partnership of social + content to work this way, you have to build up each on their own. That’s why we’re going to tackle how to build a strong social media presence today on the blog. Ready? Grab a latte, coffee or tea and join me. Let’s start with the first steps. The First Steps for Scoring on Social: Know Your Audience, Choose Platforms, Set Goals Ready to get going with a content marketing strategy that includes a strong social presence? Ask yourself key questions and begin with these steps: 1. Go Where Your People Are “Where does my audience live?” is the first question you should ask yourself when you’re ready to start building up your social media presence. Of course, to answer it, you have to know your audience. You need to understand who they are, what they do, and where they hang out online. Thus, at this point, you should be relying on your audience personas, or those imaginary human beings who are composites of your target audience. Here’s a sample persona from Hubspot:Based on what you know about them, which social network(s) do your personas use the most? Go there. Have you signed up for my FREE course, Turbocharge Your Content Marketing in 5 Days? I teach the basics of persona building in this course. 2. Choose Your Platforms Judiciously Maybe your personas are social media gurus who have accounts on nearly every channel. In this case, where should you go? Do you create accounts for your brand on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest? Do you set up an account on that new network that hasn’t gained much traction yet (these come and go, but there’s always one out there)? The answer is no, you shouldn’t. Instead, ask yourself this question: “Where can I reach my audience effectively?” If you sign up for every social media account you can, you’ll just spread yourself too thin. Instead, choose a select few, ones where you can have a demonstrable impact on your audience. According to Inc., quality is better than quantity for social media, especially if you don’t have the funds for a dedicated social media manager. So, stick to one or two platforms, and get the hang of them before you add any more. Choose platforms that will support the kind of posts you plan on doing, too. For instance, if your posts are going to be image-centric, Instagram could be better for you than Twitter. Once you figure all this out, go ahead and secure your accounts (using your brand name as your handle) on your chosen platforms. 3. Set Goals to Stand Out Here’s the final question you need to ask yourself on this quest for social media victory. How can I stand out above everyone else while reaching them? For one, plan the content you will post on each platform, and optimize that content for ultimate success. Don’t just share links to your other content on the web. Create content just for social media, too. Think video, images, interactive content, and more. Don’t just regurgitate links. Give your followers a little more reason to stay connected to your feed. Finally, plan that content with a posting calendar, and set goals for yourself. Will you try to add X number of new followers per week? Will you aim for a base level of likes on each post? Will you try to engage with others X times a day? Planning and setting goals can help push you toward success on social. It’s just that simple. 3 More Tips to Rock It Out on Social Media So, you’ve got the basics of how to grow your social media presence on lock. Now you may be wondering: How can you go the extra mile?? (like Forrest Gump?) 1. Go Live Going live means pushing “record” and rolling with it. It’s just you and your audience – no script, no text, just your face and your voice, talking to them. It sounds scary because it is. I tried it myself for the FIRST time ever recently, and I’ve been in content marketing for six years! To get myself comfortable, I went ahead and say “yes” to going live two days in a row in the middle of September. Once I got past the nerves of “going live,” I really enjoyed it. I went live on Dr. Ai Addyson-Zhang’s show, Classroom Without Walls, speaking SEO content tactics. She is a social media professor that holds a FB Live every Wednesday at 5 PM. The NEXT day, I was live on Madalyn Sklar’s awesome #TwitterSmarter afterchat, sharing Twitter strategies to earn more business. Each appearance racked up over 500 views, and, my Facebook page went from 600-odd page likes to over 800 that week. Wow! It was well worth it. The fear, of course, is tied to the “live” part of the deal, and it understandably holds many people back. However, it can be HUGELY valuable for your brand’s reach on social media, because platforms serve live content first – just like I found out! Look at Facebook, for instance. They know that people are more likely to stop and watch a live video, or watch it longer, so they serve that content to you first. Crazy, right? To get a taste of the difference between live and standard video posts, think about some … Read more
