Five Steps To Take Your Social Media From Mediocre To Meaningful

Five Steps To Take Your Social Media From Mediocre To Meaningful

These days everyone has some form of social media from Facebook to TikTok, it is rare to find someone who is not connected on at least one social platform. However, just having social media and posting sporadically is not enough when it comes to promoting yourself, your book, or your business. So how can you create a strategy to take your social media from mediocre to meaningful?

Decide what a win on social media looks like for you. 

• Why are you using social media?

• What do you want your audience to know?

• Who are your audiences?

  1. How do you, your book or your business fill a need of theirs? 

Pick the social media platforms that are best for you based on your message, business and audiences.

• Now that you have defined your audiences, which social platforms are they engaging with the most? 

• Now that you have figured out what you want your audiences to know, how will you be sharing your messages?

  1. Will you be sharing blogs, articles, book promotions, videos, testimonials, brand partnerships or a combination of all of these? Below you can find short explanations or tips for what is best shared on each platform; however, please remember that each business, influencer, author or individual is different and what works for some people will not work for others. 

     1. Instagram: VIDEO IS KING. You must be sharing Instagram Reels, hosting Instagram Live events and sharing videos on stories. 

     2. Facebook: Utilize Facebook Groups and create a community. 

     3. TikTok: Authenticity is the key to success. Be honest and raw with your community. 

     4. Twitter: Quick short and witty updates are crucial. 

     5. Pinterest: Utilize aesthetically pleasing graphics with how-tos, DIY or inspiration.

     6. LinkedIn: Connect with stakeholders, other professionals in and out of your field to build credibility with your LinkedIn Audience. 

     7. YouTube: Longer, well-edited videos with more in-depth descriptions or explanations are best shared on YouTube..

• If you are just beginning to put time and strategy into your socials, pick one to three that you can truly dedicate your time to. It is better to have one really great platform that you connect with your audiences on and build a community rather than three mediocre social media accounts. 

Create a strategy and stay consistent. 

• How many hours can you dedicate a week or a day to social media? 

• How many times a week can you post? 

  1. We recommend at least three to five times per week on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. For other accounts such as Pinterest, we suggest three to five posts per day, five days a week and the pins should be a combination between new pins you create and shared pins from other similar creators or themes. Twitter can be up to 10 Tweets per day including retweets. For YouTube, we suggest at least 2 videos per week to keep your audience engaged.

• Try to plan your content out a month or at least two weeks in advance. 

  1. Use a social media calendar to plan out your posts including all videos, graphics, photos and captions. 

  2. Choose a day of the week to schedule all of your posts for that week and ensure you do not need to change anything on your social media plan due to holidays, incidents or important updates. 

• Always respond to comments and direct messages in a timely manner. 

Utilize your analytics. 

• Each social media platform has its own analytics that will show you things like your most popular posts, how many people are engaging with your account, and how many people are viewing your account. *Pro tip: Be sure to change your account to a business or influencer account for more analytics and sharing capabilities. 

• Use these to shift your strategy based on what is working and not working. Not everything will resonate with your audiences and that is okay. Choose your top five most popular posts over the past month and use those for inspiration for future posts. Don’t forget, trends will come and go so change things up regularly and research new trends to incorporate each month.

Don’t be afraid to try new things and be creative! 

• Don’t be afraid to try things that are outside of your comfort zone. The best way to do this is to find 5 accounts that inspire you and find inspiration from their content. It is important to make these your own! If you copy someone, be sure to give them credit. 

• Ask for advice from colleagues, mentors and friends that you trust. Collaborate on social media with others in your field or even someone not in your direct field in a creative way. This engages new audiences and builds your credibility and authenticity. 

We encourage you to try out these five steps beginning in Q3 and take the month of June to prepare. Analyze your results after the first month and see how these steps can begin to build your social media engagement. It is always important to remember, great social media is not about how many followers you have but how engaged your community is with you. Are the right people commenting, sharing and overall engaging with your content? Is the engagement slowly climbing? Then you are on the right track to take your social media from good to great!