The 4 Steps You Need To Get Started On Social Media

Social Media has quickly become one of the most important facets in the realm of marketing. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and more have captured the attention of every generation and can control trends, aesthetics, and the inner workings of online communities. From these social groups, influencers and brands profit every year from promoting their products and services. They then leave everyone else wondering, how do they do it? This article will give you a few easy steps to help begin building your online presence and show you how to market your business in a professional and engaging way.

 

1. Have A Plan

The first step to take is creating a vision for your account. Regardless of the type of social media you are venturing into, a foolproof plan is a must. There are a few questions you should answer to help build an account. These will enable you to start with a strong foundation because the last thing you want to do is pour in a lot of work just to have it crumble in the end.

1. What is your mission? Write a mission and vision statement to set your overarching goal in stone.

2. What are your concrete goals? Write a list of at least five goals such as, ‘where do you want to be financially by a specific date’.

3. When are you going to post? Create a schedule for your account with specific dates and times of when you will post what. Keep in mind what times your audience has interacted with your posts in the past; these are typically the ideal moments to post in the future as well. For this, a great resource to have is a content calendar. This tool can help you organize the whole plan for everyone on your team.

4. Who is my target audience? This is perhaps the most important question of all. Knowing who you are directing your posts to will determine what and when you post. It will also help build your company by growing your customer base.

5. What are my goals or what should they be? Keep in mind that no matter what style of post you choose at any given time, some of your main goals should always be to add value, build trust, and establish your brand as an authority in your area of business. Knowing these and what they are relative to your business will help to keep your brand's social media presence engaging and make it relatively effortless for you to manage.

These five helpful steps will enable you to reach your goals more effectively. Remember that if you lay the foundation, the rest of the process will be both easier and in the long run, stronger.

 

2. Create Community

The purpose of social media is to create an online space where your target audience can connect with one another over your content. You want them to view your page as a place they rely upon for consistency and where they can gain an understanding of your organization. To do this, there are a few ways you can build your audience and create the community that they are seeking. 

For example, when boosting a product post about it. Boosting your products or content is not as hard and daunting as it may seem. It is a relatively inexpensive process and can lead to your content reaching many times the size of the audience it normally would. During this process, post about the topic you are boosting. This leads to your audience clicking on your page through boosted posts, and seeing more of the content they were looking for already on your page. 

Another tip is to decide on a posting trend you want to follow. Content calendars are a big help in this area. Keeping everyone on the same page and informing each other about which trends you are sticking with is vital. Pay attention to both visual and audio trends. Which are coming into style? Which are on their last leg? Is an influencer or someone with a lot of followers jumping on something that could turn into a trend? Keeping your ear to the ground is key. The reasoning behind this is that your audience wants consistency and your consistency will build a following. 

Speaking of consistency, a third tip is to post at least once a day. Algorithms change regularly but keeping up with a reliable posting schedule will have your audience making your content part of their daily routine, regardless if their algorithm is feeding your content to them or not.

Your followers are important, but they aren’t just your audience. Interact with every person who comes across your page like it’s your best friend. That sounds strange, because how can you interact with all of them? But having a strong voice, sticking with your company's persona, and keeping with your brand’s story will make it feel as if you are their friend, or if they are just beginning to visit your page, someone they would like to get to know.

Now there are many things that you should do when working with social media and your audience, but here are two things you should never participate in. Don’t buy bots or use the follow/unfollow technique. This will never earn the trust of your audience. Buying bots is a practice among some influencers. They will purchase fake accounts and have those accounts follow them so that it appears they have more followers than they do. This builds their credibility for a time, but eventually purchased bots are usually identified and their credibility is lost. The follow/unfollow technique is not typically as condemned as buying bots, but it is still a practice you should not follow. This is when someone follows an account, waits to be followed back, and then unfollows the account, just to gain a larger audience. Again, this is considered a low blow and not an ethical practice.

On a more cheerful note, remember the purpose of your brand. You don’t always want to be asking things of your followers, you also want to be adding value to their time spent on your page for the sake of adding value. People will follow you because you have their best interests in mind, not because you keep asking them to buy your products. Share the purpose with them and tell your story. Advertising a product rarely sticks with you for long, but a story does.

Finally, engage well with your audience. It can be hard to know when to pick your battles, but it can be even harder to know how to pick them. For instance, you have to know when it is appropriate to use subvertising. An example of this is when you respond sarcastically to comments or you tell your audience that you aren’t advertising to them even when you are. This can be a very effective way to communicate, but if used in the wrong context it can do more harm than good. The general rule in communicating with your audience is to be kind first and funny second. Only use humor when you know it will land.

 

3. Use Engaging Writing

Arguably one of the most important aspects of your social media, writing concise, engaging content can be the driving force of your page. Getting started in this can be difficult, especially if you are doing it yourself and not outsourcing. So here are some pro tips to keep your writing interesting and to help pull your audience in.

Before you begin writing, remember the Golden Circle. Start with your organization's story and hit three main points. Start with your why. Why does your organization do what they do? Then ask how. How did they get there? Finally, ask what. What should your audience do in response?

A vital piece of any written content, no matter how long or short, is the call to action. Ask yourself, what do you want your audience to do after they interact with your post? Should they click a link, or purchase your product? No matter the post, direct them in what they should do next. 

The next major step is choosing a perspective to tell your story. If you use first person, you are telling it from the perspective of your organization. “This is our story.” Whereas, if you use second person, you tell it from your customer's point of view. “This is why you want to know about us.” Third person is telling it from an objective perspective. “She wants to know about us.” When you choose which point of view you are using, your story can come alive in a bigger way than before. 

Use BIG, bold words to draw the eye. When writing, consider which words you want to emphasize and play around with different styles to help pull people in. Don’t just stylize your words though, try using bigger words to create emphasis. For instance, use ‘massive’ or ‘momentous’ instead of ‘big’. Focus on your word choice and use your words well but remember to keep it digestible. 

When writing, avoid the shock factor. Sometimes, this can work, but only in a handful of scenarios. You want your audience to trust you and mostly the shock factor leads to disbelief and distrust of a brand. Think of clickbait and how often that actually helps you gain followers. Sure, it might boost your interactions with one post, but long term it mostly only hurts your brand.

Don’t be afraid to use emojis! This can be a touchy subject with some, but emojis don’t detract from the professionalism of your brand when used appropriately. The general recommendation is to keep your emoji usage to one per major line. Overall, use your judgment, but avoid detracting from the message. Remember, you’re telling your story with words, not emojis.

When you post, use plenty of hashtags. They will help draw in an audience through the algorithm and will also provide a reference for what your content is about. Resources like Hashtagify can help you find relevant hashtags for your brand. We highly recommend these kinds of resources to help simplify the process.

Another easy way to boost your social media writing is tagging other people and businesses. Tag the accounts that might be similar to your own so that your content will be associated with theirs. This is a great way for the people in your target audience to come to you. 

Lastly, you need to know the anatomy of a social media post. What should be included each time you create? First, make sure that you always start your writing with the most important message first. Then, keep it simple and incorporate your branding to make it professional. Don’t forget to include captivating visuals and use quick and catchy taglines to draw in your audience.

 

4. Aesthetic Is Everything

When drafting up your account, know your aesthetic. Social media is first and foremost a visual place. Your audience is going to notice the colors and themes of your page before they read what you have to say. So before anything else, know what your aesthetic will be before you begin posting and keep it consistent through all platforms where you can.

To do this successfully, choose a color scheme. A good way to pick your colors is to stick with the colors of your brand logo. Use color palette inspiration sites such as Coolers to help you find other colors that go well with your brand. Know the general feel of your brand as well. Do you want your audience to be relaxed on your page? Then use blues or browns. Do you want them to feel excited and cheerful? Maybe pick a yellow. Know your audience and cater to what they are looking for.

Pay attention to the six square rule. When a patron visits your page, know what the first posts they will see are. This differs depending on the platform. For Instagram, it will be the first six squares on your page. Make sure that they blend well together and keep a cohesive message. For TikTok, it will be the first six videos. Know your platforms and keep them consistent.

As you’ve noticed, knowing your audience is a key part of doing well on social media. A piece of this is that you need to understand if they will respond better to videos or posts. This may be one that you have to play around with, or you can investigate competitors' pages and see what works best for them. Generally speaking, photos are good but a video is best, but there is not one specific formula that works for how much you should do of each.

Lastly, when you are creating a post, most of the time, only post one image. If you do post multiple photos, keep all of your information on the first slide. Typically, unless that first slide is extremely intriguing, your audience won’t swipe. So keep your posts aesthetically pleasing and concise. 

 

Having a social media presence is important for any kind of organization but this is a lot of information to take in. If you take away anything from this article remember this: keep it simple and concise, always keep your target audience in mind and be honest and ethical in your work. Posting on social media takes time to become good at. But with practice, research, and trial and error, you can create a whole new side to your organization that can help grow and flourish it into an indispensable aspect of your brand.

 

Written by,  Emma Coykendall