Tips for Social Media
Not everyone enjoys social media, many perceive it as a necessary evil. Whilst still relatively new there can be little dispute that it has fundamentally changed the world we live in. We might not all “get it”, but it is now pretty much embedded in the fabric of everyday life. However, whatever your thoughts are it has become one of the main avenues that we now consume information through and it is an incredible tool for promoting yourself, your business and your brand. Fully aware of the significance and the potential that promotion through social media brings, a number of the PCA team attended an online social media masterclass for businesses to help us maximize our social media offerings. What was interesting is that it became clear that people engage better with people - the more pictures/videos you post, the better and greater the reaction will be. But what else did we learn....?
"Embrace the Space"
The online course was hosted by Gary Ennis and Colin Kelly authors of “Embrace the Space” a number best selling book on amazon providing strategic insights into social media. However, if you are going to 'embrace the space', you will want your social media content to create as big an impact as possible. Below is a list of some of the top tips and insights that I took away from the course that may help you do just that...
1. They’re not all the same
It might sound obvious, but each social media platform has a very different demographic. LinkedIn is for professionals, Facebook for friends, TikTok for people considerably younger than me (or those that try to be!) and Twitter for instantaneous news and unfortunately, for trolls. You would not expect a uniform approach to work for all these demographics in the real world, so why would you expect it to work in the virtual? Don’t be lazy and cut and paste the same message across all platforms. Think about who you are targeting on which platform, and tailor your message accordingly.
2. Be a person, not an organisation
It might be obvious to most, but as I learnt recently...people engage with people much more readily than corporate entities. The same dull, faceless message is unlikely to gain much interest. Give your social media personality and make it something people can relate with.
3. Give them something they will want to share.
To extend the reach of your social media post, try to make your content something that others will want to share. If it is just seen by your connections the exposure will always be somewhat limited. However if people start sharing with their connections, it will soon start to spread. Again this is simple and obvious, but if you don’t create content that they will want to share then it won't happen.
4. Video content
An interesting fact right now...social media sites, particularly Facebook, love video content and they will push your post further if it contains videos. Videos are also easy to consume. Yes they are uncomfortable to produce to begin with, but they get easier the more familiar you become with them. They don’t need to be too polished either, this just make you more relatable to the viewer.
5. Have a group
Having groups on platforms such as Facebook will help to ensure that any content you produce is less likely to be missed, as it will actively seek to promote that content to members of the group.
6. Be active
Social media is a bit of a reciprocal thing, the more you put in the more you will get out. The more you engage with others the more likely they are to engage with you.
7. They want to keep you on their site
Naturally social media sites want you to use them as much as possible. They don’t want you to encourage people to go to other sites, especially rival social media sites. So avoid links that do this.
8. Beat the algorithms
Most platforms will actively promote content that it thinks is interesting. It normally assesses this by the volume of interest that the content has generated. IF a post gets very limited interest within an initial period, then it is unlikely to think the content is significant. Beat these algorithms by lining up connections to engage with the post, and make the algorithms think it is a post it wants to promote. As I said at the beginning, people like to engage with people and from a social media perspective, it's very much the same. Get creative, post regularly and your content will go from strength to strength!
Other recent news or related info
Remember to keep in the loop...
Find out the latest news instantly by following the PCA via our social media channels:
linkedin facebook twitter