BEST PRACTICES FOR LEVERAGING THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Those who have the tendency to follow the crowd often get lost in it. In this day and age when there are plenty of social media tools and platforms, it has become easier to get lost in the muddle. However, for when there is the penchant to step away from the tangle, solutions will prop up. Here we are basically going to discuss the different ways and means to derive maximum leverage from social media.
KNOWING THE AUDIENCE AND CATERING TO THEIR DEMANDS At the end of the day it is all business, it is all aimed at building a presence and monetizing your service. People, the biggest asset, the biggest lynchpin for any sort of service to grow has to be taken into account before jumping onto the social media bandwagon. Be it Facebook, Twitter, or any other platform, no content, no tweets, no amount of marketing will meet the desired results if the audience is not known. What people want is what you deliver, the type of audience dictates content and everything else which goes with it. Hence, knowing your audience is not only the primary aim, it is one vital cog.
POSTING RELEVANT AND CURATED CONTENT The next step is to understand the type of content which will generate traction. Social media optimization kicks in here as this is one tool where you can identify the type of content and the type of people wanting it. This is where you can establish your presence and then gradually put the hammer down to be the leading voice in the concerned industry. Not all posts work across all the different platforms and this is where some sort of A/B testing needs to be done to understand which platform supports which content. It is domineering to understand that each platform has its own set of algorithms and user base and hence content should be curated accordingly.
UNDERSTANDING THE DEMOGRAPHICS Demographics are nothing but the statistical breakdown of the type of population which includes age, income, marital status, type of employment, and geographic location. And this is where social media profiling helps, as it allows the company to understand their audience much more keenly and closely. This will also help them gauge how frequently the target audience uses social media. The answers to all these questions will give a proper sense of understanding about the community in order to curate content.Â
QUALITY OVER QUANTITY AT ALL TIMES Incessant posting of content might even lead to spamming and this is one sure way to erode user interest. This is basically an extrapolation over the previous point. Social sharing content in order to cater to the demands of the demography identified has to be paramount and should be the guiding light at all times.
INTEGRATING SOCIAL PLATFORMS TO THE WEBSITE All the links from all the social media sites should be included in the website and a proper back linking structure should be in place. Owing to high-quality links on social media the social sites have a greater web authority which helps in generating traction on search engines as well.Â
USING PAID CONTENT TO LEVERAGE SOCIAL MEDIA BETTER The biggest advantage of paid social is that the content can be specifically targeted to the niche audience which will only help in grabbing more relevant eyeballs. Also, micro-managing will come to fore and this only adds another wing to increase the reach and traction. Also, it should be mentioned here that not all posts should be boosted, it is a strategic move at all times, only those posts should be boosted which will give concerted traction and the return on investment will actually be a substantial.
CREATING CONTENT FROM SOCIAL MEDIA
In order to be more engaging one needs to keep asking the users and audiences their preferences as far content they want to see and read. And this is where influencers step in, they keep tabs on what works and they should ideally identify exact content which needs to created. It is always advisable to setup a feedback channel with the influencers and keep then in the loop.
SUMMARY
Content is the king, but if modern trends are to be believed, social media sharing is the trusted aide which adds sanctity and gravity to content. Leveraging social media marketing with the help of social media optimization and the rest of the tools discussed above is the best possible way to extract dividends. And then there is networking, more collaboration across the different platforms leads to more visibility which in order leads to more traction and yes, money keeps flowing in!