Social media success isn’t an accident, it’s the result of a great deal of effort. Some people find it easy, others consider it’s a necessary evil.
Your approach will, to a large extent generate the results – if you hate doing it, your posts will reflect that. If you enjoy finding and creating content your audience will appreciate and engage with, your posts will have more life and energy.
Here are our SOCIAL tips!
Schedule
If you leave it to the day of posting you’ll fall into two potential traps:
- You’ll be too busy and you won’t get around to posting
- You’ll have brain fade and be unable to come up with anything worth posting.
A schedule with at least some indication of what you want to post and where ensures you have a plan of action and some ideas to get your creative juices flowing.
Oooo-factor!
Nobody engages with bland content.
Very few people engage with sales pitches.
Watch any social media feed for a minute or two and you’ll see the speed at which content is posted. Most of us scroll until something catches our eye – and if the first few words don’t make us sit up and take notice, the chance of engagement vanishes fast.
This is why you need to know your target audience really well and then create content that you know will excite and engage them. It’s OK to do some sales posts on social media, but if you just do that and only talk about your products or services you’ll ban them with boredom!
While cute cat videos may not be relevant, something entertaining in some way will get you noticed and engage people who want to see more. Time to get those creative juices flowing.
Consistent
Everyone is deluged with information and memories are short. Consistency is about posting regularly so you don’t fall off people’s radar. They may not need what you offer today, but if they keep seeing great content from you, you’ll be the first person they think of when that need arises.
Posting once a month or when you remember won’t get the results you hope for.
Influence
Your posts are your means to influence the audience who follow you or see your posts randomly. That means you need to know what you want people to think about you and your business – and make sure that your posts reinforce that message.
Authentic
Be you! Sound obvious, but so many people use different language in their online posts to how they communicate face-to-face. That means that when people get to know you online and then meet your face-to-face (even that’s in a Zoom meeting) there’s a disconnect. That doesn’t make them feel comfortable – and reduces the likelihood that they’ll consider using your products or services.
Lively
You can kill a perfectly good post by using passive language and losing the life and energy from your message. Here’s an example – which of these sounds livelier?
You can improve your business results with our tried and tested plan
OR
Put your business on the fast track to success with a guaranteed step-by-step guide
I’m hoping you picked the second one. The language is more active and it has energy. The first example is very bland and corporate and doesn’t sound exciting.
Sharpen up your posts so they grab people’s attention and interest.
Follow the SOCIAL checklist and your posts will perform well.
