Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Blogger: all of these
names are quite familiar to you, I presume. You might even have a couple of
accounts from each as you share your life away, everyday or just scroll through
the posts mindlessly. The fact that you are on a blogger account, reading this
blog says a lot about you already. You might characterize yourself as an active
social media user or simply a “scroller” of content, but whatever you are, you
are reading this to become a “au naturel” a “pro” at what you do everyday.
Initially, the fact that you own one of these social media
accounts is quite irrelevant, congrats you are doing the same thing as 1.73
billion others, but what you do with this account is what would make you 1 in a
billion… As entrepreneur John
Rampton puts it, “If
you’re not generating conversations or new subscribers, or making any money,
then whatever you’re doing has failed.”(2014) Therefore here is a couple of advice
that can be helpful for your cause:
1.
Know your target audience: It is crystal clear that
you have a message you want to portray and therefore how you depict it is
crucial. You need to be aware of your audience’s wants and needs, and in order
to capture their notice provide your content in such a way to attract their
utmost attention. For example, the Offbeat Brides wedding site, is known to
have an amazing Pinterest account where they not only pin items present on
their own website but also provides wedding information for soon-to-be
exclusive brides. The company is fully aware of its own audience and knows what
these brides are craving, to be unique and fabulous on their own wedding day.
2.
Keep your consistency in
check: Should
you post every minute, every hour, every other day…? This is a question that
has no correct answer, unfortunately. It is important to understand what your
audience wants. As Rampton puts it, you could send 14 posts throughout the day,
but they should be spread out because you never know who’s reading what at what
time, therefore you need to keep in mind your global audience.
3.
Know which medium to use: For the Offbeat Brides website the best way to portray their information was through Pinterest, where
people go to discover knew and creative ideas. But a company or a law firm
might not get very many fans on that social media platform. Therefore it is
crucial to know your audience and where they are more likely to linger, and
which medium they want to see your posts depicted. If you are humorous maybe
perhaps you might want to use twitter to get followers to laugh once in a while
among the array of tweets they see everyday, and so on.
4.
Allow opinions to flow: Do not just throw out
information to your audience; allow them to contribute to what you have to say.
Be engaging, ask questions, ask them to favorite or re-tweet a post, and get
their attention get more than just passive attendance.
5.
Be on top of the game: Know what is popular,
what is trending, what is most wanted, be updated literally all the time…
Because social media does not like playing old school be up to date on the most
recent information. It is vital to comment about possibly any news that might
be interesting, for example like last week’s Vernal Equinox, incorporating
recent news with your message.
No one told you this was an easy task, but once you’re in the
game it is hard to get out. It is important to know that no game is lost or
won, without getting in and playing it. So do not be discouraged with the
information provided. Just get your head in the game, know and strongly believe
in what you have to say, know who you want to say it to, and decide how you
want to say it… it’s as easy as this. As Jay Baer the hype-free social media
and content strategist & speaker puts it, “Use technology to be yourself,
and don’t overthink it”.
