11 simple steps to boosting your presence on social media

Fatboy's Blog · 12th September 2019

There is so much more to social media, than just being on social media. If you want to gain loyal followers, creating an account and writing a few posts each week, simply isn’t enough. Sorry.

To reap the benefits of these marketing platforms there are a few steps you need to take in order to boost your brand’s social media presence.

  1. Set goals

To see results on social media, you need to decide why you’re there in the first place. This could be to get more sponsors/owners, increase awareness about your services, drives sales, or learn more about your customers.

Setting goals will provide a clear understanding of what you are striving to achieve with your social media, and will help you avoid aimlessly posting. They will also allow you to measure your success and increase your social media presence in the long run.

  1. Know your audience

Once you know what you want to achieve with your social media, you need to identify your audience. It’s worth spending time creating audience personas, in order to understand their challenges and what brands they follow on social. This will help you decide:

  • Which social media sites to use
  • The type of content you post – and when to post it
  • Your brand’s voice
  • Your profile information (more on this below)

  1. Create a great profile

A good profile will improve your brand’s credibility and help build trust. Write a short bio that tells your story and make sure you have a decent profile photo – as this is the first thing visitors will see.

It’s also a good idea to use a few relevant keywords, as this will drive traffic to your profile. Tools such as KWFinder and Google Keyword Planner can help with this.

  1. Keep active

Check out the biggest brands on social and you’ll see they all post on a consistent basis. Staying active on social media takes time, but there are loads of tools out there to enable you to schedule posts up to a month in advance. Hootsuite is our favourite, but others to try include Sprout Social, Buffer or BuzzSumo. These will not only save you time, they also make it easier to monitor your networks and respond quickly to messages.

  1. Plan your content

All great marketing campaigns start with a great strategy. Once you’ve decided your goals and your target audience, you should create a monthly plan for your content. This will help you:

  • Post regularly
  • Decide on what your audience is interested in
  • Time your posts for maximum engagement, without having to post in real-time
  • Avoid repeating the same content
  • Ensure every post serves a purpose

  1. Engage with your audience

Finding followers on social media isn’t just about creating quality, consistent content. To build trust with your audience you also need to engage with them. If someone posts about your brand, or comments on one of your posts, make sure your respond.

There are many other ways to engage with people:

  • Comment on other posts
  • Start or take part in conversations
  • Share relevant information/news
  • Ask and answer questions
  • Set up polls, quizzes, or contests

  1. Follow relevant accounts

Another key part of engagement is following other people’s social media accounts. This will help establish your authenticity, and increase your followers, as many will follow you in return.

Bare in mind these accounts should be relevant to your brand and business – you will do yourself no favours if you follow everyone and anyone. Be selective in order to curate a brand that people aspire to.

  1. Be yourself

While curating your brand is a key part of success on social media, it’s also important to be yourself. People love to see real lives and real stories – warts and all. Life has its ups and downs, and sharing these moments will humanise your brand and build trust with your audience.

  1. Optimise your accounts

Search engines see everything that you post on social media, which means it can be listed on Google.

Including relevant keywords in your posts will boost their visibility, leading to more visits, which will improve your social media presence.

Using the previously mentioned keyword research tools you can check what relevant users are looking for on Google and use keywords to grab their attention.

Another good way to optimise your accounts is via your profile. Using keywords, images and fully filling out your account information can help your page rank better in Google, and attract more followers.

  1. Influencer marketing

Building relationships with social media influencers can help drive brand recognition, widen your reach and increase customer loyalty. According to a survey from Nielsen only 33% of consumers trust advertisements, while 90% follow recommendations from their peers. So it pays to identify the influencers in your market and take time to build relationships with them – even if this means paying for it. More on this below.

  1. Paid promotion

Once you’ve tried all of the different organic ways to boost your social media presence, you should look at paid promotions. Both social ads and influencer marketing can have a massive impact on ROI – and you don’t need to pay big bucks to see big results.

Paid for ads can help you target your ideal audience ­– based on location, demographics, and interests – leading to higher engagement and more conversions.

Boosting ads on Facebook is a great place to start and once you’ve mastered this you can think about creating an ad campaign.

Growing your social media presence can feel daunting, but by following these tips you should start to see results.

The key thing is to be proactive and take an interest in what’s going on around you. And don’t expect results over night ­– gaining followers on social media takes time and effort. But the results can have a huge impact on your business.

 

For more great advice get in touch to find out how we can help boost your business and make the most of your marketing.