If you’re involved with any type of business these days, you have an online presence. However big or small, you need to be seen where people are looking. And that means you need to put real effort into your social media engagement. The second someone sees something annoying, uninteresting, repetitive, irrelevant or boring, you run the risk of that dreaded “unlike” or “unfollow.”
Here are a few tips to keep things share-worthy. The overarching theme here is to act like a person.
Don’t overdo it.
Thanks, tips! That’s pretty obvious, but worth mentioning nonetheless. It’s really easy to get carried away and lose the sense of what’s too much when you’re really excited about something. If people see your posts too many times in a day, goodbye! There’s a fine line between promoting your business and over-selling. And the latter is very off-putting indeed. If you sound like a business, you’ll be seen as one. Write your posts as if you were telling your customer something in passing as they were walking into your store or office. It makes a huge difference.
Share what you find interesting.
If you treat your brand as a person, think about what that person would like to hear. Your followers are like-minded to you, so they’ll listen. Treat it as your own personal account; share things of interest with your friends. If your business is in animal rights, share the latest article highlighting the WWF’s efforts to saving the pandas. If you over-sell, people will notice. And that “unlike” button is too easily accessible for you to run that risk. Put yourself in your followers’ shoes. Think of whether you’d click the link to learn more when deciding on what to post.
Mix up your content.
Again, if you treat your brand as a person, don’t only talk about yourself. People are self-obsessed; they’d rather tell you about themselves than hear about you. So ask them! Engage them to reach out and share their own take on whatever it is you’re talking about. Mix up your content with industry updates, photos, videos, insights, questions and answers. And remember that people respond best to visuals. Infographics will perform better than paragraphs.
Play it by ear.
The only sure way to know how well something will be received is to put it out there. This kind of research cuts straight to the chase. It either works, or it doesn’t. See what kinds of posts people like and keep giving them those. Similarly, ditch the ones that don’t work. One unsuccessful post won’t kill you. It will show you what not to do. Ever again.
Quality > Quantity
It takes the same amount of energy to create one great post and five crappy ones. Use your resources wisely and give quality the time it deserves. The same applies to hashtags. It’s better to use one to three good hashtags that already have a good following than 20 hashtags that do absolutely nothing. And that many of them make your post look like spam. Even better if you incorporate them into your sentences so they serve a dual purpose: both communicate and connect.