Social Media Strategy
4 Steps for Building Your Social Media Presence Online
Aug 30 2022
When it comes to building your social media presence there are four steps that you should plan for each social network: Profile, People, Post, and Participate.
Big Idea:
As you build your social media presence, be sure you plan for each of these stages to maximize your chances of success. Many businesses only focus on profiles and posts and don’t sufficiently build an audience for their profiles.
Building a solid profile is the first step. As you build your profile consider best practices for the platform.
A few tips for building a strong social media profile:
Once you have a profile the next step is to get people to follow you! There are many strategies and tactics that you can use to build a following, and what works is a little different on each platform. What isn’t different is that you need a clear and compelling value proposition and great content to really connect with people.
Big Idea:
At this stage it is also helpful to consider your overall strategy and value proposition for the network, as you may want to incorporate this into your profile description. Ask yourself: why should someone follow me here? What will they get out of it?
Build a plan to attract followers to your account. Beyond posting regular, compelling content, some of the most popular strategies are:
Posting regular content that people love is important to maintain your presence and drive business impact. Each network has different norms in terms of frequency. It is important to consider how often you have great content and build your calendar around the content you have vs. an arbitrary schedule.
Tool: Scheduling
There are many tools that will allow you to schedule social media posts in advance. Most networks now allow you to create scheduled posts, but you can also use tools like Buffer or Sprout Social to schedule posts to multiple networks.
As you consider your content plan, it may be helpful to think upfront about the assets that you will need to execute. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different kinds of content – especially when you are starting out.
Big Idea:
Be sure to regularly analyze your content so you know what works and doesn’t. Content trends change over time and staying aware of how your content is performing as well as experimentation will future-proof your content strategy.
Step 4: Participate
Participating on social media is important – it is called social media for a reason. Different networks allow for different levels of interaction between business accounts and people.
For all networks you should plan to:
For networks that allow businesses to connect with other people, you should plan to:
Some large and well-loved brands are able to build a following just by being present, however most businesses have to work at connecting with others to build their presence.
There are many social media management tools that make it easy to find and connect with others, as well as respond to comments. Hootsuite and Sprout Social are popular for this for smaller businesses, and Sprinklr is one of the more popular enterprise tools.
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