Business owners intuitively understand that in order to have a successful, thriving business, they must be present in the places in which their customers congregate.
Nowadays, most of these places are online.
Online social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, and so on.
Knowing that consumers are spending more and more time on these social media platforms makes it quite clear that being present on these platforms will give your business more exposure to your target audience.
Let’s discuss 5 best practices in creating a powerful social media presence.
1) Focus On The Most Relevant Social Media Platforms
First of all, you need to understand the nature of your business to decide which social media platforms to use.
For example, if you’re a furniture flipper or a photographer, your work is that of a visual nature.
It would make much more sense to spend your time building a strong Instagram profile showcasing your best work, rather than spending your time Tweeting about the day’s events.
It is also recommended to choose two or three of these social media platforms in which to focus and double down on with your business, as opposed to spreading yourself thin over 10+ platforms.
2) Research Your Competitors
Now that you’ve chosen your platforms, it is always a best practice to conduct research on all of your top competitors to see what type of content they’re posting, how many followers they have, how many likes they get, etc.
This way, you will be able to establish a minimum benchmark for the type of metrics you want to hit as your following grows.
By compiling this data, you will also begin to notice the strengths and weaknesses in your competitors’ social media approach.
The idea here is to capitalize on your competitors’ weaknesses and improve upon their strengths in order to build a stronger social media presence than them over the long run.
This competitive research step is one that is used with any digital marketing element.
3) Post Content Catered To Your Target Audience
You shouldn’t just post for the sake of posting.
The content you post on your chosen social media platforms should be catered to your ideal customer.
You’re building a brand here – a brand that should set out to speak to and resonate with the exact audience you’re trying to ultimately turn into customers.
The better your posts identify with your target audience, the more targeted traction your business will get from your posts.
4) Consistency Is Everything
Social media is all about consistency.
In the age of attention, consumers are constantly being bombarded with unsolicited emails, ads, messages – you name it!
Because of this, it can be hard to stand out.
Your business will be easily forgotten among the noise if you don’t stay on top of your social media accounts.
It is recommended to post on each of your accounts at least 3 times per week, every week.
5) Pro-Tip: Schedule Your Posts
Perhaps the biggest reason for why businesses have a hard time staying consistent with their social media posts over a long period of time is because they haven’t discovered how to schedule their posts.
Most businesses log into their accounts and manually create their social media posts each and everyday.
This is both inefficient and unproductive.
A best practice to implement for your social media accounts is to sign up to a service that allows you to schedule your social media posts months in advance.
Some tools that allow this functionality are: Hootsuite, Buffer, and Publer.
At Active Business Growth, we personally do this ourselves.
In about 2-3 hours, we’re able to create posts on all of our social media accounts a month (or more, if desired) in advance!
This way, we can set it and forget it, and focus on other aspects of our business for the rest of the month.
Conclusion
Follow these 5 steps to get a head start on your social media presence and a leg up on your competitors.
By implementing these steps, you’ll be on your way to creating strong online exposure for your business in no time!
We would like to thank Jeremy Lawlor for contributing as a guest blogger!
Jeremy Lawlor is the co-founder of Active Business Growth, a boutique digital marketing agency that specializes in growing the online presence of local businesses. He is proud of the awards his agency has received thus far, including Top SEO Companies 2019 from Clutch, Top SEO Agencies In Canada 2019 from The Manifest, and Top SEO Services Company from GoodFirms. When not performing Canada SEO, Jeremy enjoys sports, traveling, and writing about himself in the third person.
For more information about Active Business Growth’s digital marketing services:
(416) 706-8425
