You’ve been tasked with managing your clients’ social media – create a schedule for posting, maintain structure across accounts, establishing their unique voice, and more! – deciding what to post can stump even the savviest of social media users.
You’ll likely find yourself asking: What time of day should I post? How often? Should I include memes?
We have the answers to those questions and more. Read below to discover 4 tips for creating an engaging social media presence.
- Be Consistent
Consistency is key when it comes to posting on social media. A few things must remain consistent when posting – timing, tone, type of content.
- Try to post at least every day to maximize reach to your potential audience.
- Determine when your audience is most likely to engage or share content and create a schedule for posting to maximize your reach.
- Planning out posts in advance can also help maintain a balance of content. You don’t want to share too much of the same type of content in one day and then not enough on the other days of the week. Scheduling content beforehand will ensure content will be evenly distributed throughout the week.
- Keeping a consistent tone across accounts is helpful too. This is where understanding your audience and who is interacting with your content will be important. Knowing which demographics you are reaching along with the unique voice of your client helps determine the tone – serious, funny, informative, or relaxed? When getting started, keep things light but industry-focused, avoiding topics or content that could be considered contentious.
- Be consistent with sources, as well and only share content from trusted, reliable sources. Share content from relevant industry organizations, reliable media outlets, and objective sources via the internet.
- Include a Call to Action
Including a call to action is essential in increasing engagement across social channels. A good call to action can drive viewers to access your content.
- Identify the task for your audience and provide clear, concise direction to complete. You don’t want your audience to have to search for content or instructions, so it is helpful to link the content directly in the post.
- The call to action can take several forms:
- Register for an event
- Create an account
- View a press release, and many others.
Use strong action words – command words like “Discover”, “Explore” and “Read” are always good. Strong, forward and descriptive verbs encourage the audience to take action.
- Create a sense of urgency. Always note if something is breaking news, and include any upcoming deadlines or timely information with your call to action so your audience can act appropriately.
- Incorporate Visual Media
Including visual media attracts and retains engaged followers. Today’s internet users are driven by video based content more than any other type of content. With video focused apps like TikTok becoming more prominent and Facebook Watch taking off, internet users spend most of their time consuming video content. Even on mediums where video is not the main focus, audiovisual content performs well. On Twitter, posts with video attracted 10x more engagements than posts without video.
Posting videos with your own content, resharing relevant videos or simply including a GIF in your posts will make them more eye-catching and attention grabbing.
- Engage with your Audience
The best way to get your audience to start engaging with your content, is to engage with them!
- Using a social media management tool, whether it be Sprout or Hootsuite, can help with this. Using the tool to track comments, mentions, likes and other engagements across all platforms will help you respond quickly – keeping your conversation relevant. Make sure to answer questions and respond to direct messages in a timely fashion. This will reinforce your client’s willingness to engage and support interested followers.
- Brush up on your audiences’ interests! Tap into current trending topics in a way that makes sense. Don’t feel the need to participate in trends that are completely off topic and unrelated to your messaging or goals.
- Ask your audience to share feedback, stories, and videos. As an added bonus, feedback can be used to shape new content on your client’s channels.
- Don’t be afraid to include relevant hashtags in your content. Hashtags will connect your potential audience to your content. Hashtags are a great way to connect attendees of live or virtual events and to organize content across your accounts.
One last note – although social media can seem daunting, with the right tools and a clear understanding of your target audience and client tone of voice, you can create a fun and engaging social media experience with results your clients can appreciate. So get out there and get social!
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