A guest post by Sanket Shah.Â
Having a social media presence is non-negotiable these days. With every brand, irrespective of the industry or vertical, and every business, big or small, needs to be present online, and focus on having a strong social media profile with good online engagement.
One of the reasons for this is the significant increase in the number of people who buy products online based on what they see on social media. Besides that, there is an apparent need for being accessible to the customers.
There are over 4.59 billion social media users globally, which means that is the possible number of people every business could reach with suitable posts, ads, and marketing on social media. If you are a business owner trying to increase their social media reach, here is the ultimate guide you need to build a strong profile and reach maximum engagement.
Analyse your existing accounts for engagement
Before you build a social media plan, you need to analyse and see where you stand vis-Ã -vis engagement on all the social media platforms. If you are using the same content everywhere but still waiting for the same results, now might be the time to experiment. You could try using different content types for various platforms based on your social media marketing goals.
Besides that, you can also repurpose the content in different formats to suit the platform. For instance, a long-worded blog post on LinkedIn could be repurposed as an infographic for Twitter, while the same content could be used as a video for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Understanding your current engagement and seeing what post type works on each platform for your business would be a great place to start while working on increasing your social media engagement.
Have clear social media marketing goals
Knowing what you want from social media is crucial to increase your social media engagement. For instance, are you aiming to increase your website traffic and brand popularity, engage with your community, boost your brand reputation, generate leads, or gain market insights?
Define your social media marketing goals at the outset and build a strong marketing strategy that aligns with the goals. If you start posting without clear goals in mind, you might spend too much time and resources on social media without a clue about what metrics you are tracking, how it helps your business, and if there is an ROI to the whole exercise.
One way to set achievable goals is to understand your audience, industry and competition. Once you have a clear understanding of whom you are dealing with, and understand what and how you wish to engage with them, you can use this information to build a social media strategy which would drive you to success.
Make use of video marketing
Video marketing is a great way to get the word out about your business and helps you connect better with your audience. Over 86% of businesses use video as part of their marketing plan. This is because video-based content is easier to consume than text, engaging, and easy to comprehend.
It is no wonder that all popular social media platforms favour content creators who post videos. Now might be the right time to begin if you have yet to start using videos on your social media platform.
Over 43% of social media marketers did not try video marketing because they needed in-house capabilities. But given the popularity of short-form videos like reels and Youtube Shorts, creating videos is no longer an expensive affair.
You can edit a video online and customise it for different platforms. All you need are an idea for a video, a 30-60 second video footage shot on your phone, and free online video editing software. You can add trending music, stock images, text, etc., to make your videos more engaging.
Make your content discoverable
Hashtags have been a great way to group content which belongs to one particular theme, concept, or conversation. They are one of the easiest ways to engage your audience, make it more discoverable and create a brand identity.
You can create a hashtag that resonates with your business, use popular hashtags, and use your unique brand hashtag on your posts. Doing so brings your posts together and helps social media algorithms group them and suggest them to people who engage with similar content.
You can find trending hashtags by following popular influencers on various social media platforms. Using hashtag popularity tools, check for popular hashtags. And make it a point to post with hashtags which resonate with your brand frequently.
You can also encourage your audience to tweet with your brand hashtag while you run a contest. This will help you group contest posts together while also helping you popularise your brand hashtag.
Follow social media trends
Posting content about your brand is essential, but you should stick to those posts with others. Social media is great for sharing your thoughts, opinions and stance on various topics happening and trending worldwide. Most brands post their humorous takes on world events on social media to strike a chord with their followers.
Besides that, following popular social media trends is a great way to reach, engage and build a strong audience base online. Following your industry leaders and brand influencers, set up Google Trends alert, etc., to see what is happening around the world, and you can create content accordingly.
Also you can also have seasonally relevant content added to your social media calendar and schedule it in advance.
Engage the users
This might seem like a no-brainer. Sadly, many brands do not do so, which is why they fail. A survey by Lyfemarketing found that over 71% of social media users are likely to recommend a brand to their friends and family if they have a positive experience interacting with the brand on social media.
While responding and being available round the clock might be impossible for brands, you can always set up automated replies for inbox messages and assure your customers that they are being heard.
Besides that, for tweets, posts, and other mentions, you will have to respond to the messages personally and keep the audience hooked. When you respond to comments, feedback, and concerns, your brand will automatically stand out from those who do not respond to user responses.
Add a human side to your social media persona
It is tempting to talk about your brand, product, and service offerings on social media. But if that is all you do, your audience might lose interest in your brand. Everyone loves interacting with real people and seeing brands' human side. Let your social media platforms show the human side of your brand.
You can share photos, videos, and behind-the-scenes of your products in the form of quirky videos, posts and Live. You can also use this to showcase your work culture and market yourself as a great workplace.
While these exercises might take time, you can start by engaging the users in conversations by responding to their comments rather than just liking and sharing their posts.
Ready to boost your social media engagement?
Building a strong social media presence and engaging your audience can take time. It takes consistent effort and planning. You can start by creating a social media calendar and following popular social media trends to ensure you are on the right page.
Remember, there is no one-size-fits-all with social media engagement, so experiment with various content types and strategies until you find the one that works best for your brand.
We hope following these tips help you build a strong social media profile and boost your business online. If you have any additional questions, comments, or feedback on the points in this blog, do reach out to us.
About the author
Sanket Shah is the Founder and CEO of InVideo who initiated this startup with the view of encouraging the creation and use of videos in all sectors of business as well as private lives. Sanket’s dedication has led InVideo to serve millions of users from 190 countries across the world. His continuous encouragement to all video users and desire to make video making and editing accessible to everyone has contributed largely to the video production industry.
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