So, you are interested in building a social media presence for yourself or your brand, but how can you get started? The process can seem complicated and hard especially when you have to do it from the ground up. Below are 11 ways of creating and maintaining growth on your social media presence.

Asking Yourself “Why am I on social media?”

Everyone and their pets are on social media today, so you assume that just because they are you need to be too. This is a fair point, but you need to go deeper than that. You should be asking yourself questions like “Why am I on social media?” and “What am I willing to get out of it?”

A good place to start is to set goals and targets of what you want to achieve and have a clear idea of what content you are going to share with your audience. Think about the direction you want the platform to go: have SMART targets then create content to share. This is going to guide you and give you a purpose. You won’t be posting content aimlessly.

Make sure you choose platforms that are right for you

Choosing the right platform is very important because it means you don’t have to waste a lot of time and effort on a platform that won’t give you a return. You don’t have to be famous on every platform out there. If you are in the business industry, the best platforms are Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. If you are a photographer, then you are going to benefit from platforms like Pinterest and Instagram.

If you don’t know where to get started, then you need to start with Instagram and Facebook because they are the most used social media platforms with over one billion monthly users.

Letting your audience know why you are on social media

You need a following if you are going to succeed with any platform, and it can be a challenge when you have to start from scratch. There are some that lets you invite your friends to like your page. Make sure your customers know where to find you.

Make sure you have your social media handles on your email campaigns or print because that is how people will know. Link your profiles on your site or have a “Follow us!” sign on your physical shop or a festival.

Optimizing your profiles

Optimization can sound like hard work, but it is easy and necessary if you want to stand out on social media.

It is vital to make sure that your page has the right information filled and is consistent; you won’t grab much attention when your Facebook profile is half-filed with poor imagery. You want people to instantly recognize you when they see your page. You want people to know you are professional and know what you are doing when they check out your profile. There are a lot of resources online that are going to help you know more about optimizing your page on a particular platform.

Keeping an eye on algorithm and updates

Facebook was the first platform to implement a wizard-like algorithm that seemed like it read your mind and decided which content you want to see. Most social media platforms have an algorithm, and you need to take full advantage of it.

Facebook will prioritize visually engaging content over less visual ones like text. You can see a huge difference when you add a photo to your status update. If you post two updates one with a photo and another without, you are going to see a big difference. This is why when you open your Facebook feed, you are going to see more videos than word status updates.

This is the same with platforms like Twitter, although they use chronological order. Posting at the right time is going to determine whether your tweet gets 10 or 100 retweets.

Interacting with your audience

You should be a faceless profile because social media is a lot about being social. It is not where you talk to an anonymous hoard of people. The content needs to be engaging and creates conversations, but you still need to interact with them.

You should respond to comments positively, encourage conversations, and answer messages; this is going to let the audience know more about you and make them feel like you care. When the audience feels like you think about them, they will keep interacting with you and your brand and even encourage others to follow and interact with you. When you buy YouTube comments you will encourage others to also comment and watch your videos.

Creating an editorial schedule

You might think that this is not an important thing, but it is. It is important to post regularly if you want to succeed with your social media presence. You also have to post at the right time, which is why you need to plan ahead. When you have an editorial schedule, you are going to avoid repeating yourself or forgetting to post.

An editorial schedule will help you plan when and what you are going to post, which gives you enough time to create content and focus on your business instead of spending a lot of time panicking because you don’t know what to post. Compare different platforms, the plot in key dates, and you will see a difference.

Keeping it fresh

Don’t be the person posting the same link many times over. You don’t need to post again because your audience has already seen it.

Audiences are interested in new and fresh content cutting through the noise and competition. Focus on creating bespoke content for your business, which will stop the viewer from scrolling past and engaging with your content. If you are not sure, then the best bet is something visual like a well-designed photo montage or video. Don’t be afraid of experimenting.

Be careful so you don’t end up oversharing one thing. If you have a message you want to get across to as many people as possible, the best way of coming up with different ways of doing it. You can choose to interview someone or write a blog. There are many ways of getting your message out, and social media platforms know that.

Don’t push the hard sell

One of the most important things you need to have in mind when it comes to social media is people hate getting sold to. Think of how you feel when a sales assistant tries to force you to buy a bar of soap, or an insurance salesperson selling you window insurance. The company might put you off because it feels intrusive.

This is the same case with social media. There are different ways of communicating something, and the same goes for selling. This is your chance to be creative and not be too obvious when you sell. This is the work of your email campaigns.

Jumping on the bandwagons

You most likely have seen trending hashtags online and companies jumping on them to promote their products. This can be cringe at times, but it is a good way of joining a global conversation and a chance of showing the world your brand’s personality.

This can be an excellent way to get your name out there and attract new followers who might be interested in what you are offering or your business. You should choose popular and specific hashtags to reach a new audience like #WorldMentalHealthDay or #CharityTuesday.

Be careful when using or making up hashtags. You are going to reach out to the wrong audience and you will seem out of the loop. Take your time and make sure the hashtags you are about to use are going to help you with your social media efforts.

Learning from your mistakes and successes

Knowing what is working and what isn’t for you as a business is a very important aspect of having a strong social media presence. You should use the platform’s built-in analytics, or listening tools for reputation protection like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, or SumAll can help you know what the audience likes. These tools will help you know whether you are reaching your targets or not.

You shouldn’t keep the same thing if it is not giving you good results. You need to keep learning about your audience because you want to give them what they want. If you notice that they like a certain type of post, then you need to make more of that content. There are many tools you can use to know the type of content your audience likes. The insights are very important because they will help you choose the right direction when it comes to your social media presence.