It’s called social media for a reason. It’s not just a place to share photos and updates of your life. It’s a place to connect – to be SOCIAL.
Below find a few of our pointers on how to best utilize your social platforms:
- Build a content library. Yes, you! And don’t worry, you don’t have to author all the content. Start out by defining a list of topics about which to research or write.
- Gather articles from well-respected outlets that share content you wish to share with your audience. Industry news, related trends, and current events offer excellent starting points for social posts and articles.
- Batch write posts, articles, blogs, and even photo captions. Block a few hours each month to get your thoughts down and draft purposeful copy.
- Incorporate your brand messages, industry trends, news, and related holidays into your writing.
- Be sure to include some lighthearted content. Not all your copy should be about your brand and industry. You want to showcase your team (literally show everyone the personal side of your organization). Highlight national holidays. Showcase what makes your brand different from others.
- Pull images and videos that marry your content. Pictures speak a thousand words. So much so, that images and videos increase views, likes, and comments and encourage people to stop and pay attention to your brand.
- Hire a professional photography for branded photos that you and your company can own and use for marketing purposes at your discretion.
- Seek out free images – The perfect image to accompany certain social content can be difficult to find, but sometimes you can get lucky with a freebie on sites including, but not limited to: Freepik, Pixabay, and Unsplash.
- Subscribe to a stock photo resource library such as Shutterstock, Adobe, or Pexels, and download images that can be branded with your logo and then altered for each of your social platforms
- Stock your social calendar. Now that you have content and imagery at your fingertips, you can begin strategically populating your calendar.
- Utilize an industry resource such as Hootsuite or Buffer for managing and scheduling your social content.
- Schedule your posts on the days and times that make the most sense for your platform and your audiences. Sprout Social and Hubspot provide great text and graphic resources on their blogs for the majority of the social platforms.
- With the scheduling resources, you can fill your queue weekly, bi-weekly or even monthly and forget about it.
- Sometimes unpredicted news or content becomes available. Be flexible with your calendar and shift the “evergreen” posts
- Don’t be a stalker, but be sure to follow the right people, influencers, and organizations. Follow legitimate and relevant accounts. Share resourceful or thoughtful content of those you are following.
Remember it’s a social platform. It’s not all business all the time. Be active and engaging. Have fun with your posts. Know your audiences. Understand the platforms. And share what’s important to you and your brand.
Now get out there and be SOCIAL!
Visit our Thought Leadership page next week to check out our April Good Reads blog for a curated list of the most-up-to-date news about social media.