Social media can be a great way to stay in touch with family and friends and keep track of breaking news, but it’s also an effective tool to promote businesses and brands. If you want to increase your employability, building and developing your personal brand is a critical way of achieving professional success. Similarly, if you’re launching your own business or side hustle, you’ll want to use social media as a tool to increase brand awareness and engage with your target audience.Â
Indeed, many people are successfully using social media as a side hustle in itself. With influencer marketing, for example, you can use your social media followers as a commodity to secure contracts and investments from companies and brands that want to increase their reach.Â
With more than 4.2 billion active users, however, there’s a significant amount of competition when it comes to social media. To be successful, you’ll need to use strategic marketing to generate awareness and innovative techniques to gain followers. To learn how, take a look at these five ways to boost your presence on social media:
1. Tailor Content to Your Target Audience
When you’re posting on social media, every piece of content you share should be published with a specific goal in mind. Perhaps you want to direct users to a landing page or encourage them to reply with to your post, for example. Of course, you’ll only be able to achieve your objectives if your content is relevant to your target audience.Â
If you’re not sure who makes up your target audience, it’s time to start from scratch and consider who you want to appeal to and why. If you’re developing a personal brand to increase your professional success, for example, your target audience might consist of industry peers and leaders, for example. Alternatively, if you want to become an influencer, your target audience might be made up of young adults living in the U.S., aged between 18-26.Â
No matter who your target audience is, be sure to conduct in-depth research and get to know them. By doing so, you can ensure that the content you share on social media appeals to them and enables you to achieve your goals.Â
2. Use Different Types of Content
On most social media platforms, it’s easy and fast to type a few words and hit ‘send’, but a more nuanced approach is required if you want to make social media work for you. Instead of relying solely on text-based posts, vary the type of content you use.Â
With a little research, you’ll see that video marketing content is extremely popular on social media and watched by all demographics. Similarly, one study has shown that text-based posts that are accompanied by visual content, like images and infographics, perform 323% better than text-based content alone.Â
If you’re going to vary the type of content you publish, make sure your images and videos are formatted appropriately for each social media platform. When you’re planning your Instagram strategy, for example, take a look at this blog post on Instagram horizontal dimensions and video sizes. When you use Setapp to identify the apps that will help you to achieve your goals, it’s easier than ever to streamline your social media management. With solutions-based app suggestions, you can access the tools you need, when you need them, and increase the efficacy of your social media activity.Â
3. Interact with Followers
When users follow you or subscribe to your channel, they’re not generally looking for a passive experience. If you publish promotional content and little else, for example, you’ll probably find that your subscriber figures will decline rapidly.Â
Your followers want and expect interaction with you, so be sure to make this an important element of your social media strategy. If you have a large number of followers or receive numerous messages, you won’t be expected to reply to each and every one, but interacting with some followers on a daily basis can be a good way to forge relationships and secure the long-term loyalty of your followers. By doing so, you can increase your reach via shares and reposts, as well as securing more subscribers.Â
Without strong brand recognition, attracting prospective donors and persuading them to contribute is an uphill battle. Therefore, it is crucial to build a robust Personal Brand early on, highlighting your values and qualifications, to bridge the gap and effectively compete for essential campaign resources.
4. Test Your Content
If you want to increase your presence on social media, it’s vital to know what content performs best on your channels and profiles. This allows you to focus on the types of content and the themes and topics that are performing well, while reducing the number of posts that are less interesting to your audience.Â
Monitoring your analytics and mentions is a good way to get the data you need, but testing your content should be a regular part of your routine too. By releasing similar posts with a few subtle differences and monitoring the varying responses, you can begin to build a picture of what works best for audience and what doesn’t. Once you have this information, you can hone your content strategy and maximize its success.Â
5. Post Content Regularly
Social media is a hotspot for topical content and breaking news, which means users expect to see new content on a regular basis. By scheduling posts, you can ensure that your followers will be able to see regular content on your feeds and channels.Â
However, quantity should never trump quality. While it’s important to post regularly, don’t let your schedule undermine the quality of your content. Instead, focus on producing top-quality posts and sharing insightful and relevant content, even if it means you’re posting less frequently.Â
Achieving Social Media Success
As you get to know your target audience and figure out what type of content gets you the best results, you’ll be able to increase your followers and achieve social media success. It’s important to remember, however, that long-term social media success requires ongoing input, so don’t take your foot off the pedal. By consistently improving your content, interacting with other users frequently and implementing a content schedule, you can increase the longevity of your social media success and achieve your objectives.Â
