Your social media presence is not just a part of your business; it’s a gateway to a world of marketing benefits that can catapult your reach, capabilities, and business profile to new heights of visibility. Embrace the potential for exponential growth and success that social media offers.
Social media may not be a natural skill for everyone, but that doesn’t mean you can’t master it. What works for one brand might not work for another, but with the right tips and tricks, you can boost your social media game, avoid the abyss of silence, and start seeing real engagement with your audience.
Right now, over 5 billion people worldwide use social media. Whether you appeal to the local market, you’re multinational, or you require a specific demographic for your products or services, there is no denying that when it comes to reaching mass volumes of people, social media really can be beaten.
But where exactly do you start, and what can you go to up your social media game?
These social media tips are tried and tested and can help you to gain the exposure you deserve.
Identify Your Platforms
There are numerous social media platforms out there, but being active on all of them isn’t necessary, and can even be detrimental. What’s crucial is understanding your ideal demographic and focusing your efforts where they are. By doing so, you’re showing your audience that they are at the heart of your social media strategy.
The top 10 social media platforms in the world are (in no particular order)
- Tiktok
- Snapchat
- Youtube
- Telegram
- Kuaishou
- Sina Weibo
Pinterest, X, Reddit, LinkedIn, Quora, and Twitch are also popular platforms and make up the top 20, but the above has the most registered users worldwide. It goes without saying you cannot realistically be active and effective across all of the above, so you need to find where your audience is.
Let’s look at some Facebook statistics. One survey quoted that 77% of women and 61% use Facebook, while the most per age group of users on Facebook is 30-49, making up 77% of people in this age group being on Facebook while 70% of 18-29-year-olds also use the platform. However, a 2024 study by Statistica found that the largest user group was men between the ages of 24 and 34, who made up just over 18% of the audience globally.
Business of Apps identified that the majority of TikTok users are under the age of 30, with Indonesia having the majority of users, followed by Brazil (Statistica). TikTok itself says that the majority of its audience is female.
Breaking down platforms like this can allow you to determine where you need to be to get the best response to what you do, gain more visibility, and yield the best results on social media.
Go Live
What going live means is that you use the feature on the platform of choice to record a live video feed. You can choose from YouTube Live, Facebook Live, Tiktok Live, Instagram Live, LinkIn Live and more. You are essentially connecting with your audience there and then and as people watch your stream you can converse with them directly and show an authentic and real side to your brand that can help build and solidify relationships. To go live, you need to open the app, navigate to the ‘Live’ feature, and start your broadcast. You can then interact with your viewers through comments and reactions, making the experience more engaging and interactive.
Typically, this feature is used to spark discussion, hot promotion items, sales, discounts, giveaways, etc., and is an excellent way to engage your following and reach a wider audience. It is suggested that going live is the best way to engage and reach people, and this is predominantly how people engage and interact online on social media.
To do this, you can quickly start by simply holding your phone and talking into the camera; it’s straightforward to get started; a good tip is to practice recording yourself on your phone as if you’re doing this for real to see how you come across and to build your confidence. Then, you need to take the plunge. Post on your pages that you will be “going live” at a specific time and date. You get people online, encourage them to turn their notifications on so they are notified when you do this, and bite the bullet.
The more you do it, the easier it will be, and then you can invest in equipment to help you improve the quality of your live videos. You can use microphones and tripods with your device. You can invest in a live cinematic multicam, which is perfect for live sessions as it allows for a more immersive experience for viewers and gives you better shots than a static set would.
Create A Strategy
Just randomly posting anything and everything might hit the mark, but more than likely, it’s going to miss it entirely and do you a disservice. You need to be consistently active on social media and put out valuable, informative, and engaging content. This is the trifecta for success. But what makes your content valuable, informative, and engaging all depends on your business, what you want from the activity and your audience. Marketing your business via content on LinkedIn is going to be vastly different than creating reels on IG.
These tips can help you to devise a strategy.
- Identify your audience using the tips above
- See what type of content people are engaging with
- Look at what competitors are doing
- Identify your brand voice and values to give you a starting point.
- What content works best on the platform
- What makes you unique
- How can you make your content unique
- What results do you want?
Your strategy, when followed diligently, holds the key to your success and brand recognition. It’s your beacon in the sea of social media noise, ensuring your voice is heard and your content is seen. Without a well-crafted strategy, you risk getting lost in the abyss of social media saturation, where your efforts might go unnoticed.
Set Goals
Now that you have your strategy, it’s time to take the reins and define the goals of your social media presence. This is your opportunity to steer your business’s online narrative, deciding what you do and don’t want from your posting schedule. Remember, this is a variable process that will ultimately depend on your business and its unique needs.
When setting goals for your social media strategy, it’s crucial to make them measurable. Whether it’s creating sign-ups for a newsletter, generating sales, or raising awareness, having clear, measurable goals provides a benchmark for success and guides your content creation. Without them, you’re just posting without a purpose, and that won’t yield any results.
At the outset, your focus might be on building followers and increasing engagement. However, it’s crucial to understand that engagement holds more weight than mere follower count. The more people interact with your content, the more value the algorithm assigns to it, leading to increased visibility. As people engage, they are more likely to follow your account, creating a cycle of organic growth.
Increasing followers without engagement is a waste of time because, simply put, if there is no engagement, there is no point in them liking your page or following you because they’re not bringing any value. Engagement can be determined by a few actions, including clicking links, liking posts, leaving comments, or sharing the content. It all helps and is valuable, so focusing on this over increasing followers will be more beneficial.
Create Content
Now that you have your social media strategy, target audience, and platform selection in place, you can finally get around to creating viable content that your audience and social media users want to engage with. This point is easier said than done. How exactly do you create engaging content? In the first instance, it can be a good idea to outsource this to an expert content creation partner who can use their skills and creativity to create the right content for you. Alternatively, you can hire an in-house social media manager to create content and build your audience.
As reiterated, it’s crucial that your content resonates with your business and, more importantly, your audience. For instance, younger demographics tend to gravitate towards video content, making platforms like TikTok and Instagram ideal for reaching them. On the other hand, if your target audience includes older generations, such as Boomers, they might prefer Facebook, where images and text can be more effective than videos. Understanding these nuances is key to creating content that truly connects with your audience.
Again, use the data determined from the above points to identify the media type you should be putting out. Then look for emerging social media trends, challenges, and hot topics to help you create relevant content that generates a buzz and gets people talking. Keep it relevant to your brand and what you do and consistent to your brand voice and ethos. Look at what your competitors are putting out and see if it’s working for them and what you can take from their successes and failures to help you move forward and avoid mistakes with your marketing.
Social media is a must for marketing; there is no denying the benefits it can bring you. However, avoiding the more common mistakes such as overposting, not engaging with followers, or not tracking analytics and knowing what you are doing will help you achieve your desired success.
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Pankaj Jangir
Max Therry
Walter Moore