In today’s day end age, social media presence has become a necessity for any business. It adds to a company’s personality and its ability to uniquely connect with target audiences. The volume of social media users continues to grow year after year. In 2017, social media users reached 1.96 billion and are expected to grow to 2.5 billion by the end of 2018 (Statista). Today, there is a large variety of social platforms to choose from, each with its own unique abilities. It is important to discover the right platforms for your business and leverage them correctly. For more information on how to choose the right platforms for your business, take a look our previous article, “What Social Networks Should Your Business Be On?”. We break down the most popular platforms and show you how to properly utilize each one.
Having a strong social media presence can help your business in several ways. Business’ social media platforms act as multiple gateways to a business’ website, creating an external linking structure and more opportunities to appear in search results. Social media creates a way to increase brand awareness and customer base. Any company has the ability to connect with customers in diverse ways while also driving traffic to their website to generate conversions. Below are the top 5 ways to grow a social media following and increase online presence.
Quality Over Quantity
When it comes to optimizing your social media platforms and strategy, we recommend quality over quantity. That means committing to specific platforms, dedicating a budget and allocating time to leverage the platforms properly. It is better to post 2-3x a week on one platform than once a month or sporadically on multiple platforms. You will see greater benefits when fully committing to one rather than half-heartedly posting to multiple sites.
Brand Identity
Consistent branding across all platforms is extremely important when growing your following. Without a clear brand identity across all platforms, your company’s message may get confusing and will not support growth. Additionally, you want this same brand identity to come through in all of your social posts. Your brand should clearly come through with each post, making it clear the assets and concepts represent your company.
Target Audience
Keeping your target audience in mind when creating content for social media platforms is a necessity; after all that is who you are making the content for. Ask yourself, “Would this be something my customer would like?”. If the answer is no, get back to the drawing board. Always have the mindset of your target audience, their interests and which platform they use, when writing your content.
Goals
Each of your social media posts, regardless of platform, should have an overall goal. This allows you to maintain consistency and gives a reason and structure for each post. Below are five main goals you should write your posts around:
1. Educational
Provide information and resources that appeal to your target audience. This could be promoting the latest blog post your business has written, sharing industry-related articles or giving quick tips in the form of posts. This is the perfect opportunity to showcase your expertise.
2. Driving Traffic & Sales
Highlighting certain aspects of your business’ website, such as services or products. The promotion of new products/services, email newsletter sign-ups, giveaways or promotional codes.
3. Entertainment
Engaging content that is industry related. Memes, GIF’s, or videos can all make for fun posts that will entertain your audience, and boost brand awareness and engagement.
4. Brand Awareness & Personality
These posts become more tailored to the everyday work life at your company. Company updates or events, new additions to your staff, or company outings can be fun for your target audience to see.
5. Feedback
Getting participation or comments through giveaways, polls, and requests for opinions These posts are written specifically to engage with you followers.
Consistency
Consistency is the reason your audience follows and stays engaged with your content. Because they have decided to follow your profile, they genuinely want to see what you have to share in their daily feed. We recommend committing to a certain amount of posts a week, creating a content calendar and scheduling out posts in advance, this ensures you are remaining consistent, relevant and present to your followers
Growing your social media presence can be difficult and slow at first, but don’t get discouraged! You need time for your brand to gain traffic and establish itself online. If you are feeling overwhelmed creating a social media strategy, let us help! To maximize the impact of your social media program, we will create a content strategy filled with engaging content to grow your brand and business on platforms that work for your company.
About Ocreative
Ocreative is a Milwaukee marketing agency, with expertise and broad experience developing clients’ digital marketing strategies and growing their online presence. The company’s core values include offering the highest level of customer service, award-worthy quality, and performance that surpasses client expectations. Ocreative is located just outside Milwaukee and works with clients locally, nationally, and globally. Their clients have access to some of the most fun and knowledgeable professionals around—those who inspire, educate, and problem solve. The agency provides marketing and brand strategy, advertising and design, website design and social media, and video expertise to their clients, fulfilling their desire for business growth and their aspiration to make a mark on their industry.
