Dos and Don’ts of Social Media

Whether you’re promoting your own company, building brand awareness, or trying to boost your personal accounts; there are good and bad practices for growing an audience on social media. We know that building a following can be challenging and often discouraging. That’s why we put together this list of helpful tips to ensure that you will see growth in your social media community.

DOS:

Post Original Content:

Posting original content is a sure way to show your followers that you are worth paying attention to. Your audience wants to see that you are original and that you bring something fresh to the table. Whether it be a picture, a video, or an interesting thought, your community will appreciate that you took the time to come up with something new. As people begin to share your content you will see steady growth in your social media accounts.

Post Consistently: 

Your audience wants to hear from you all the time! Posting consistently across all your social media accounts is a great way to stay relevant to your followers.  If your audience knows that you will be posting three times a week at 11 in the morning, they will be more likely to stay subscribed to your page. They will be expecting to hear from you and I know that you will not let them down! This act of consistency will build a rapport with your followers and they will be encouraged to interact with your posts, which in turn will attract new people to your community.

Create Conversation:

This may be the most valuable tip to know about growing your social media outreach. After all, the whole point of social media is to be social. So how can you create conversation? First, you need to be active within your community. When someone comments on your post always make sure to acknowledge them in return, either with a like or a comment. This shows that you are paying attention to them and thus will encourage others to comment in the future.  The next thing you can do is find similar accounts in your niche and interact with their pages. Followers of those accounts will notice that you bring value to the conversation and will be inclined to follow you as well. One more thing you can do to create conversation is ask questions. Encourage your audience to voice their opinion and watch the conversation unfold in the comment section.

DON’TS:

Post Irrelevant Content:

The last thing your audience wants to see are pictures of cats doing back flips when your company specializes in foundation repair. Sure these pictures may be entertaining, but this irrelevant content will only bring you irrelevant followers. It is important to stay uniform with your brand because the quality of your audience is much more impactful than the quantity of your audience.

Post Sporadically:

Like I mentioned earlier, it is important to stay consistent with your posts. If your followers never know when they will hear from you they will forget about you. Don’t let them forget! You need to stay in their minds all the time. Create a schedule and stick to it! Check out this list of the best times to post on social media.

Be Boring and Bland:

The fun part about posting on social media is that you can express yourself! Put in the time to come up with exciting and creative content that will blow your audience away. When it’s all said and done your followers just want to be informed and entertained. They want to get that little bit of joy that comes out of seeing a funny or thought provoking post. They want to share your content with their followers and make others happy as well. Give your community what they want and stand out from those boring and bland posts that you see all over your feed.

Follow these dos and don’ts and you are sure to be a winner on social media! Good luck out there and happy posting!