Wordsmith

Social Media Is Your Friend – Treat It Like One

From humble beginnings, social media has grown from being a method for friends to talk about and remain in touch to become an important element of corporate marketing plans for nearly all today's businesses, and some of the very successful social media campaigns in the past have transformed their respective company's fortunes.

Unfortunately, many companies still don't understand the important thing elements of good social media practices, perhaps thinking instead that merely creating profiles and sporadically updating them is somehow enough.

It isn't.

If you're finding your efforts are falling in short supply of what you'd expected, you must be thinking about why that is. While the different platforms are now actually employed for business, we shouldn't forget where they came from Neiva Mara. With this at heart, and to greatly help analyze where you may be going wrong, ask yourself this: would I want to be friends with my business social media account?

It's all me, me, me

You're at a celebration, and you meet someone new. They're attractive, and you receive chatting. Ten minutes later, they're still chatting, and you're still listening. Suddenly, they're not attractive anymore. Social media isn't any different. Constantly referring to your personal company, products or services is a surefire way for zero engagement in your profiles.

Successful social media campaigns are built on likes, comments and, ideally, shares. It's the present day day version of word of mouth. This means reaching other people, commenting on the content, re-tweeting, sharing, and making them feel good.

Then, like meeting someone at a celebration and having a two-way conversation, they'll start checking you out too. If the like what they see, they're going to tell their friends all about you.

The boring friend

It's not nice, but it's an undeniable fact of life. We probably all have at least one friend who, while being really nice and a great person, is really a little bit boring. In true to life, it can be hard to keep making excuses if they invite us somewhere every weekend. With social media, ignoring them couldn't be easier.

To help keep your audience engaged, at the very least 80% of everything you post has to be entertaining, inspiring, or informative. If it isn't, people won't need to believe up a reason never to communicate with you; they will simply stop listening, and find someone who does amuse, charm, or interest them. Successful social media campaigns do this as standard.

A little less conversation

Some individuals just know how to hold a great conversation. They're knowledgeable, witty, informed, and entertaining. It's a joy to talk for them, and you usually anticipate their company. Occasionally though, you have to venture out and find stimulation in alternative methods: A walk in the countryside. A movie. Rock climbing.

Successful social media campaigns will always offer more than just words. Visuals like images, infographics and videos all capture the interest more effectively than text updates ever will. They take up more screen property, and are eminently more shareable than simple words too.

Buying a stock image license or making your personal videos is a surefire method of getting you nearer to your dream of emulating those successful social media campaigns you admire so much.

I'm washing my hair

When friends organize get-togethers, the initial people which are invited are those who usually say yes; those who are consistently there. People who often say no, who spend just as much time from the circle as they do inside it, begin to get rid of some elements of the friendship enjoyed by those who are always there.

Social media could be the same. If you intend to keep friends and family, your audience, you have to continually be there.

Inconsistent posting leaves your profile looking half-hearted, like it's only updated when you have the full time or inclination, and is not just a priority for you. And if it isn't a priority for you personally, why should it be for someone else? Consistency builds trust, that is input successful social media campaigns, so a typical posting schedule should really be devised and stuck to. If you can't post every single day, even once a week is better than a flurry of posts together and then nothing for the remaining month.

Start caring in what others think

If you're going to keep friends with people, it's important to know what they really consider you, and to know your efforts in the relationships are increasingly being reciprocated.

Social media isn't any different, and tracking the outcome of your activity is vital if you should be to learn to boost your engagement. You can find tools that enable you to test what type of activity your social media posting results in in your website. Do visitors from Facebook hang in there or bounce? Are people checking multiple pages? Simply how much time do they actually invest in your internet site once you've got them there? What forms of social media posts get the most effective reaction?

Checking these metrics is needed for all successful social media campaigns. Only by knowing and then acting on these details are you able to hope to boost your relationships along with your audience, and hope to 1 day turn them into friends of your business.