10 Tips to Succeed on Social Media

1. Optimise your profi les

On all social media platforms, your profi le page is like your shop window. Your audience will look at it and decide if they want to join your community. Make sure you make your bio’s all about your audience, they should feel you are talking directly to them and that you solve their problems with your products and services. What you do and who you do it for should be clear, it sounds obvious but I do many audits and fi nd this not to be the case!

2. Engage

Social media is all about being social and building relationships. Have conversations with your followers, on accounts that share your audience and in your direct messages. The more chatty your social media accounts are the higher your posts will be ranked by the algorithms and you’ll form stronger connections with your audience.

2. Add Value with your content

Make sure your content inspires, educates or entertains your target audience. Be relatable and make them feel seen, heard and understood. Solve problems with tutorials, how-tos, tips and tricks or inspire with case studies, sharing results. Valuable, entertaining and consistent content, leads your audience to see you as the expert, so that come back for more. These people now have you top of mind and will be ready to buy from you when you promote your product or service.

3. Embrace Video Content

According to a Cisco report, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer web traffi c and people are more likely to buy a product or service if they’ve seen a video about it. If you’re not already creating video content for your social media channels, it’s time to start. Go behind the scenes from your business or an event, show how your product is made or used, share your top tips or a tutorial, bust some industry myths, answer an FAQ or go Live! Remember to hook people in in the fi rst few seconds of your video, keep it short and give them a reason to watch until the end.

Getting yourself in front of other people’s audiences is a great way to grow your online presence but it can also help to add value to your existing audience. Go live with another business that can help your audience, for example, a social media expert could go live with a videographer to help share tips on video making and how to use video in social media - a win-win for both accounts and audiences. Guest blogging and sharing others’ posts can also help to increase your reach and create a community around your brand.

5. Seek interaction

Don’t just broadcast, start a two-way conversation. Ask questions, how is your audience feeling? Can they relate? Invite them to comment and message you. Reply to all comments, ideally with another question and nurture those relationships. Don’t underestimate the power of your direct messages, this is often where the most leads will come from.

6. Be consistent

Consistency is key on social media. Find a posting schedule that’s realistic and sustainable for you and stick to it. Of course, it’s fi ne to take holidays now and again but just make sure you tell your audience and when they can expect you to be back. Use your insights to identify if there are any trends in your topperforming posts. Maybe a similar subject theme or content format. What is your audience engaging with most? Which content drives the most website traffi c? Is there any evergreen content that you can post again and again?

8. Keep it simple

We are all so absorbed in what we do that we can easily make the mistake of presuming our target market know much more than do. Share bitesize, easily digestible content and remember that just ONE simple piece of information to you can make a huge difference to your followers. Keep captions easy to read too and avoid overwhelming people.

9. Be Authentic

Don’t be tempted to be like others on social media, you’ll lose trust from your audience but also fi nd it exhausting. Keeping it real, showing the good and the bad and letting your audience get to know, like and trust you is the only way to be truly successful on social media and you’ll get rewarded with an engaged and supportive community.

If you need any help with your social media marketing do get in touch, I offer 1:1 training, audits, strategy and mentoring as well as online workshops.