Still struggling to generate a strong social following around your business? Anyone can toss up a Facebook page and call it a day, but it takes a strategic approach to attract, and keep, an audience. Unless your social media accounts have followers, they won’t serve as an effective marketing tool for your business.
#1) Complete Your Profile
Take a minute (or several) to complete each and every field in your social media profiles. Whether it’s required or optional, you want to include as much information about your business as possible. Only entering the required fields sends the wrong message to visitors, telling them that your business doesn’t care about its social presence or followers.
Check out some of the Facebook pages of big-name brands, such Coca-Cola, Avon, Walmart, Disney, Apple and Intel, and you’ll notice they all have thorough descriptions. If all the major brands are completing their profile pages, shouldn’t smaller companies follow the same suit as well?
Benefits of completing your social media profiles:
- Encourages higher search engine rankings.
- Looks more professional.
- Establishes a strong brand identify.
- Allows potential customers to learn more about your business.
- Instills greater trust and confidence in potential customers.
- Attracts more social followers.
#2) Don’t Limit Yourself To Facebook
Granted Facebook is the undisputed leader in social media, there are many other powerful platforms out there worth using. If you’re only using Facebook, you’re leaving tons of untapped traffic up for grabs. By engaging on a variety of social platforms, you’ll generate greater brand exposure while attracting more traffic to your official business website.
Here’s a short list of some social media alternatives to Facebook:
- Google+
#3) Post Photos
The human brain is hard-wired to respond to visual stimulation. You can use this to your advantage by incorporating relevant photos into your social media posts and updates. Whether it’s a photo of your products, office, staff, etc., photos generate a stronger response by visitors, which in turn boosts your number of social followers.
MIT social media expert and researcher Stephanie Hatch recently conducted a study to determine which Facebook posts received the most likes, comments and shares. Over the course a one-month period, Hatch monitored the official MIT Facebook page, analyzing its posts and corresponding visitor engagement. She concluded that 70% of the top 20 posts had photos, and that visitor engagement is approximately 37% higher for posts with images.
“In addition to their visual impact, images take up more space in viewers’ news feeds. This increases the odds of a post getting noticed, especially on mobile phones with their smaller screens. What’s more, studies show that people are more likely to remember the content of a post when it’s accompanied by a striking image,” wrote Robyn Fizz of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Note: you should only publish photos that you have copyrights to on your social media accounts. Taking photos from other websites or social media accounts can place your business at risk for legal action. Even if it’s from a paid stock photo website, you may not have legal rights to publish it on social media networks such as Facebook.
#4) Post Regularly
One of the most common social media mistakes business owners make is failing to post on a regular basis. They may initially set up accounts on all of the leading social media networks but only make sporadic updates. A constant stream of fresh content is what keeps the wheels of social media turning, so add new posts/updates to your accounts regularly.
How often should you add new posts on your social media accounts? If you asked 10 different social media “experts,” you would probably get 10 different answers. Rather than worrying about an exact schedule, try to add at least a couple posts per week. This will keep your account fresh”in the eyes of both visitors and search engines, increasing your brand’s social media exposure while attracting more followers in the process.
#5) Link To Your Website
If you have an official business website (which you should), link back to it on your social media accounts. All of the major social media networks allow users to include a link to their website. It only takes a second to add your link, and doing so can turn your accounts into a traffic funnel for your website. Your social media followers will notice the link, and some of them will likely visit it to learn more about you and your business.
Certain social media networks, such as Google+, also allow users to link to their other social accounts. Cross-linking your social accounts together is a great way to boost your total followers across all accounts. If you see the option to include links to other social accounts, be sure to add them.